Idiots
by FloraOne
Summary: A pining-heavy first season aged up multi-chapter AU written for MamoUsa Week 2019. Usagi had been in love with Tuxedo Mask since she was 17. Mamoru, on the other hand, was her life's biggest confusion. And sometimes, it seemed to her as though he really needed some very serious reminding that he thought she had cooties.
1. Free Day

_So, say hello to another version of Flora's Rendition of a First Season Aged-Up AU. Second one in like two weeks lol. (I know, I know. I'm liking the dynamic currently. Sue me XD)_

_I've actually converted this idea – this fic was supposed to be one shot I'd been drafting. But with MamoUsa Week announced at the beginning of this month, this fic idea completely felt like I could expand it further for this purpose, and so I did. So yes, this is written for MamoUsa Week 2019 on tumblr. This will be one consecutive multi-chapter story, with the original event prompts serving as chapters. The prompts were, in this order: Free Day, Memories, Items, AU, First Kiss, A Fight and Make Up, Family, and additionally: Usagi's Birthday. Making this fic a predetermined eight chapters coming to you within eight days. Buckle up for the ride!_

_Giant thanks go both to my lovely beta Uglygreenjacket, who's getting her hands full with me on this writing spree, and to graciidancer who transcribed ALL of the first season insults from the new English dub for me (which I don't have access to) for this fic, so that I could reference things in terms that are those that you remember. (Because the German insults tended to be WAY different from the English ones back in the day!) So, this is totally dedicated to you, graciidancer!_

_Anyway, here you go, guys! And hopefully you can stick around for the week, I'd love to hear your thoughts!_

_(And since this is a tumblr event, and I haven't mentioned my tumblr in a long while I think, maybe it's time to plug that again lol? You can find me on tumblr under the same pen name and I post inspiration for my fics, random shit, my own fanart, and sometimes gush over guest reviews. Come talk to me!)_

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Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

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Day 1: Free Day

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Usagi sighed long and hard and kicked the leg of her stool with the back of her shin repeatedly, biting her straw with slumped shoulders.

It was a cute little welcome home party Motoki had put together for Reika by all means. Nothing fancy, and the lighting was a little too bright and artificial in here, what with the sun still shining through the picture windows, and the music was a little drowned out by the chatter, but the benches that usually served as booths in the Fruit Parlor had been pushed to the wall to create one long giant bench. People sat and mingled and some of them danced to cheerful, jazzy tunes. On the other side of the room, a row of tables had been pushed together for a small buffett the guests had filled. Mako-chan's big cake was the shining star.

Mako-chan who was currently crinkling her nose and laughing at whatever Touma was saying to her on the small, impromptu, diner-tiled dance floor.

Usagi rested her chin on her hand. If anything, those two were the good part of the afternoon for her. Living proof that Sensh-ing could come with that exciting flutter of fresh love anyway. A florist for her darling friend of a baker, who was _really_ into tall girls and _really_ into Mako-chan's eyes and just, yes. This was right.

Now she just wished she could have that, too.

She sighed, again. She'd really looked forward to this little party. The battles had been hard lately. Nephrite was pulling all the stops - he seemed to be getting desperate after a year of his shit.

She wondered if he was being replaced. If Queen Beryl was getting sick of him and pulled the same pressure stunt on him that had helped them to finally break down Jadeite?

Either way, the Senshi had had a whole damn lot to do, lately, and she was tired and sore and cranky and ever since she graduated from high school, she really missed being around people in close, confined spaces for vast amounts of time. For all the hundreds of horses that would not suffice in ever dragging her back into a house of education, that was the one thing she missed.

This right here was supposed to be a fun, sweet, little afternoon party with cake and drinks and easy flirts. With lots and lots of people. People whom she missed having around.

Maybe she should try and get herself an office job after all? One where she had flexible hours and could sleep and eat and read Manga all day? Those existed, right?

She poked the bottom of her empty cocktail with her gnawed on, half destroyed straw and sighed again.

"Where's your fan club?"

She jumped in her seat, her mangled straw popped out of her glass with her lifted head, dangling from her lips in little weird and wriggly movements.

What came into her immediate view was Chiba Mamoru clad in a pair of deepest, darkest emerald green skinny jeans she'd never seen on him and that he really should not be allowed to wear.

Not that they didn't look fucking spectacular on that frustratingly sexy body of his.

She frowned at his nether regions, saw his legs shift from one to the other.

"_My_ fan club?" she spoke to his legs.

When she looked up, it was kind of a mistake to do so. Mamoru's eyes sparkled in that challenging way, lips pulled somewhere between a smirk and a half smile as he settled down into the empty stool beside her on the small, tall bar table.

He was a little bit hard to look at. He was always a little bit hard to look at. Distracting. Way too good at using it to his advantage.

He shrugged. "Gaggle of girlfriends, a few puppy-eyed boys flirting and looking like you hung the moon?"

Usagi snorted. The sound blew through her deconstructed straw in little dying whistles. She finally took it from her mouth only to twist the plastic around her fingers.

"Yeah, right," she huffed. "Your pants look silly." She flicked her straw.

They didn't. But she had to keep the insults going, right? This was their thing, after all. Had been these two and a half years she'd known him.

She flushed a little from the intense smirk that pulled at his mouth in answer. He let a few seconds pass before he hurled off his comeback at her.

"Would you prefer if I took them off?"

She pressed her lips together and probably looked a little sour about now. It was all to keep from blushing. Or from saying yes. Because yes.

"They're better than your purple pleated pants by miles, at least," she said, sounding calmer than she felt.

He inclined his head. His smile smoothed out a bit. "Yeah, I've considered gifting those to you."

She frowned at him.

"The amount of times you've referenced them kind of makes it seem like they're heavy on your mind." The half-smile was back.

"Ha ha." She rolled her eyes theatrically.

He nodded at her empty glass.

"You good? I'm gonna get a drink, do you need me to bring you anything?"

She shook her head then looked down at the melted ice and the little umbrella that was almost as shredded as her tortured straw. "This was my second already and I'm out of money for the tip jar and it's getting weird to bum free drinks," she shrugged. This was still technically a café after all, even if currently turned into a venue. Motoki had fretted over the cost, the tip jar had been _her_ suggestion, after all. "So, no," she said.

He nodded and was off. She had to physically restrain herself from looking after him.

She failed.

His ass looked spectacular in these pants, and she really ought to not think that. This was the guy she used to call her nemesis for about a friggin year. It really was not her fault he was so damn attractive.

She snapped her head back when he turned his head away from Unazuki as he ordered, catching her staring.

Her eyes landed back on Mako-chan. They looked adorable. Her freshly baked boyfriend was just that tad shorter than Mako-chan, and the way they rested their heads against each other's as they slow-danced to a song that was faster than this would call for, was simply warming her heart. It felt like looking at a little baby kitten yawning. They needed to stay together forever.

And behind them there were Reika and Motoki. Gosh, he looked so friggin happy to have her back.

She wrapped that straw around her fingers so tightly it turned the skin a little white. She was incredibly, whole-heartedly happy for them. But she wanted what they had, too. So very much.

Preferably with Tuxedo Mask. But she'd learned not to dream. That ship would never sail.

She jumped at the sound of glass being put down on the aluminum bar table in front of her, pulling her out of her thoughts. Then she frowned. Two glasses. One of them the drink she'd had previously, which he hadn't even seen.

"I said—"

"So why _are_ you sitting here alone, Odango Atama?" he interrupted her, and slid the glass in front of her. Then his hand reached out, pried the tortured straw free from around her fingers, and dropped an extra, fresh and undestroyed straw on the table in front of her. Pink stripes. Even though there was a perfectly good, yellow-striped one in her drink, as well.

She blinked.

Also, his skin was surprisingly soft. Not that she'd spared that any mind when he briefly touched her to deprive her of her makeshift plastic toy, no no.

"Ami's got a late class, Rei and Minako are both at work. Mako-chan is over there," Usagi pointed. "The guy I've tried to flirt with earlier turned out to be gay again."

"Again?" He raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged, then wrapped her hands around her drink. "Thank you for the drink?" she said, instead, her voice unsure. She raised her eyes back to his.

He shrugged back in a similar fashion, eyes way warmer than she was used to from him.

Though that was probably a lie. They'd been this warm for quite some time now. She just kept comparing them to the mocking hue he'd sported when they'd met when she'd been 16.

"And apparently no one here wants to dance with me," she added with a huff and a pout, then wrapped her lips tightly around the yellow stripes and took a large sip of her bubbly sweet cocktail. With every suck of her straw, her drink emptied just that tad more, the bright pink beverage making way for transparency where it sunk down her glass.

"I could dance with you…"

She blinked back at him, surprised. His voice had been soft as he'd said it. Trailing off in that unsure way. He was wiping his hands on the fabric of his delicious pants.

She met his expectant stare in frowning silence.

Was it totally bad that she wanted to say yes? This was not what they did.

She swallowed.

Then she shook her head, and wrapped her lips back around her straw, sucking hard. "And have you drop me in the middle just for fun?" she murmured around her straw. "No, thank you."

He pursed his lips. His whole appearance felt a bit like shrinking and he stayed silent.

She felt the drop of his posture almost physically.

Her lips slipped from her straw.

"I suppose..." she started, voice small.

He shook his head sharply. Crossed his arms. His voice turned a little harder. "You don't have to dance with me if you don't want to, Usagi."

Not Odango Atama anymore. When had she learned to dislike it when he called her Usagi?

"It was just a suggestion because you looked sad," he said, and looked away from her face and to the dance floor.

She didn't like it when he looked away like that.

"What do you know? Chiba Mamoru does have a heart," she said. It was meant to get them back on track, back into their familiar, insulting banter. But he didn't react like he was supposed to, didn't react on skript.

Instead, he rolled his eyes. Not in the mocking way, but in a different way. In an off way.

"I mean, I suppose if you're prepared to dance with someone you think can't walk and talk at the same time…"

He threw her a look. He got pretty pissed at her these days when she threw his ancient insults at her back in his face.

It just fired her on.

"Plus, you really shouldn't be surprised no one wants to dance with me. After all, I'm never gonna get a boyfriend since I don't act like a lady," she continued, repeating his old words.

He huffed. Then he got up, leveling her with a glare that was so dark she felt the urge to gulp… And then his hand reached out, and he grabbed hers. He dragged her off her stool, orphaning her pretty drink, and she stumbled after him to the middle of the room, between the swaying bodies.

Her stomach dropped a little. He was holding her hand, pulling at it. His skin really was hella soft…

Then she remembered she ought to make a little bit more of a fuss, here.

"Hey! What do you—"

She stilled as he stopped and turned to her. So friggin' _close_… His eyes were still dark and he towered over her, but his touch was surprisingly gentle, and completely proper. One hand reaching out to softly cradle hers, the other resting modestly on her hip.

Oh.

She did swallow then, blinked up at him. Her eyes felt a little too wide, and she snapped her mouth shut when she realised it had opened stupidly.

And what the hell was her heart doing beating like that?

His lips pulled up – not quite the half-smile this time. And then he nudged at her a little and began to move in sync to the pretty song.

His hand felt really way too nice… She could smell him like this. Soap and something floral she couldn't put her finger on that was maybe just more soap, but which made her want to breathe him in way too deeply.

He was silent, but his touch became a little steadier and when she looked up, he was looking down at her. His lips were turned up but it was... almost NOT that signature smirk. It was both kinder and almost... shy-er.

Her stomach made a little flip-flop. Mamoru-baka isn't shy.

She almost didn't notice the expert way he led her, the way she followed in steps she barely knew so fluidly until his hand was no longer on her hip and he swung her out, only to swing her back in.

She blinked. Her cotton skirt fluttered prettily around her knees. This was nice. Really, really nice.

"You can dance," she said. There was way too much wonder laced into her almost accusing tone.

His lips quirked up into the familiar half smile. "I can," he said.

"But…" she pushed her eyebrows together. "You can like, _really_ dance."

As if in answer, he nudged her into a different direction. Steps wide and fluid and it felt a little like she was supposed to be in a movie and wear a prettier dress and people should be parting to watch them.

He shrugged, but his lips stayed in their smile and his eyes twinkled back down at her. "Is it such a surprise?"

She frowned, dipped her eyes to his chest and the soft-looking, dark button-down. "Kinda," she mumbled to his button border.

And then her stomach dropped some more, and her heartbeat hammered against her chest and he friggin _dipped_ her. She hung across the floor held by his arms around her, and it felt fucking safe, and her face must have looked pretty shocked because the smirk was back on his lips.

She felt his hand on her back, warm and strong. His hair fell into his eyes, his head bent down towards her. His eyes were... on her. Just on her. Focused an oddly intense amount. And there was something in them that made her heart beat even faster and her stomach coil into knots.

He reeled her back in. His mouth was too close when he put her back on her feet, just for that little moment in transit.

She'd felt his eyes on her lips.

She saw his adam's apple move and he turned his chin up. The movement put the modest distance back between them and she somehow felt much too disappointed by that.

But her stomach kept eating her from the inside out and her voice was a little too breathy when she spoke.

"So, does that mean you're an idiot?"

His eyes blinked in confusion. One inky strand of hair moved across his forehead when he bopped his head forward a little to frown at her better. "_What_?"

"I thought only an idiot would ever be interested in me," she said, lifting one shoulder.

His eyes flashed darker. His smile slipped away. It was replaced by a glare, and Usagi blinked slowly, then bit her lip.

"Not to say you're interested, of course. This is just a dance."

His eyes stayed in his tight frown, but he didn't answer.

She swallowed, pressing her lips together tightly.

His shoulder moved beneath her hand and he sighed. His brow smoothed over but his eyes stayed focused on her.

And then the music changed. Went from slow dance to a faster pace, and his hand slipped from her waist, and his other let go of her own hand.

She leveled a confused stare up at him, and his lips pulled into a small smile as he shrugged at her, and buried his hands in the pockets of those sexy pants.

It was the saddest smile she'd ever seen on him.

She didn't know what had gotten into her. Why she did what she did next. But with not at all tentative fingers, she reached up and touched his lips.

She felt him jump a little, and out of the corner of her eyes, she felt his eyes widen, but he didn't move away from her touch. Instead, he endured it, and she moved two fingers slowly across the soft, plump, red flesh. They felt a little like silk. And they trembled.

And then he puckered his lips into a kiss, and kissed her fingertips softly.

It made her startle almost violently, definitely physically, and she pulled her hand back as if the touch – his kiss – had struck like lightning.

She blinked up at him almost in shock, rooted to the spot. Her fingers tingled where he'd kissed them.

He buried his hands deeper in his pockets, nodded, and then turned to leave.

He'd already passed her when he turned back to her.

"Usagi?"

"Hm?" She dragged her eyes to him.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

He inclined his head. Again that sad smile. That sad smile she wanted to never see again, wanted to kiss away.

He turned his eyes to the ceiling, cocked his head, and mumbled one tiny little sentence before he turned and walked right out of the Fruit Parlor and out towards the dramatic afternoon sky.

It rang in her mind the rest of the evening, way into the night. Wouldn't let her sleep.

"I _am_ an idiot…" he'd said.

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_See you tomorrow! Next up: Memories._

_I'd love to hear your thoughts!_


	2. Memories

_Welcome back to Day 2, guys! (Which, ya know, starts earlier for me, lol. So there.) Today's theme was "Memories", so here you have a flashback and some setting ;) My forever thanks to my beta, Uglygreenjacket. Thank you, girl!_

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Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

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Day 2: Memories

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It hadn't been the first time Mamoru had confused her like this. This had been a long time coming. With Tuxedo Mask, it had been different.

Usagi had been 17 when she fell in love with Tuxedo Mask.

She'd had a crush before, of course. How could she not? Ever since the night she had become Sailor Moon, about a year previously, and he'd been there with her right from the start. It was easy to crush on the guy that whisked her out of danger, talked her up to find her strength, praised her at every turn, saved her life on numerous occasions.

But that night that made this real she had not been Sailor Moon, she'd been Usagi.

The battle that night had been hard, she'd been left bruised and drained and asking herself if this would ever end, if she would ever beat these guys. This time, she waited until she was halfway home to detransform – it was safer not to be seen as Sailor Moon around her neighborhood after a battle, Minako had drilled that into her – but this time she regretted it almost immediately. The pain was worse when untransformed and shot up her leg. She felt bruises forming against her cheekbone and ribcages around a heavy heart and was just about to fuck it and transform back when he found her.

He'd landed directly in her path, fluttering cape and all, and those dark eyes behind his mask had looked completely horrified.

"What happened to you?!" he'd nearly shouted. It was weird. These had been the first words Tuxedo Mask had ever spoken to Tsukino Usagi, but they did not feel like the words spoken to a stranger.

Not to Sailor Moon, obviously. They'd spoken just minutes before, when they'd assured each other they weren't all too worse for the wear, nothing they couldn't handle, nothing their magic wouldn't heal in a day or two, and he'd bowed in that respectful yet still rather distant way before dashing off.

One of his gloved hands had reached out, hovering above her bruising face but not touching. His eyes looked…

Sailor Moon had been injured pretty often. To the point that Tuxedo Mask happily took blows for her, all the time, always concerned. Sailor Moon had been injured lots of times, way worse than what was currently blooming on Usagi's face.

But Tuxedo Mask had never looked at a wound of Sailor Moon's as utterly _appalled_ as this. As if it had no absolute _right_ to be where it was.

She'd recoiled a little from the sheer intensity of his concern, looked up at him with wide eyes and took a step back. Then cringed – she'd forgotten the pain in her leg and cried out when the mistake made her put her weight on the wrong one on accident.

His eyes grew wide, almost terrified, when his hands shot out to steady her wobbling, hobbling form.

His voice grew into an angry hiss. "How did this—"

Usagi wracked her brain for what she could say. She didn't want to lie to Tuxedo Mask.

"I got um… I got into the crossfire at that youma battle."

She mentally patted her own shoulder. Not a lie at all.

It seemed impossible, but his look grew even more horrified.

"I didn't see you there," he rasped.

"Um… "

His whole face screamed remorse. "I would have… I wouldn't have let this happen to you. If I'd seen you, I would have… I would…"

"It's really ok," Usagi interrupted. "It was my own fault, really!"

This didn't seem to help at all. His look stayed mortified. "This… this shouldn't happen to you…"

He seemed to take inventory of her state and each hair out of place seemed to register on his face and turn it more ashen, as if every stray oddity was his own personal fault.

"You're injured, too," Usagi pointed out. "Should this have happened to _you_?"

He dismissed her remark as if it were ridiculous. He just repeated what he'd said before, with even more emphasis. "This shouldn't happen to _you_."

Usagi cocked her head. "You … don't even know me."

This finally seemed to shake him. He blinked, and some of the intensity fled his eyes and posture. "Um, right," he said. A few stray black strands of hair fell into his eyes over his mask as he bent over her a little. "Yes. Yes, of course. I'm sorry, this… must be weird for you."

She held his eyes, saying nothing. His cape flapped in the night breeze and he tore his eyes from her briefly to look off into the distance. It felt as if he were trying to calm down.

"I'm gonna get you to a hospital now," he stated finally.

Usagi's eyes widened. She held up her hands. "NO!" she shouted.

He frowned at her. "Oda— I mean…" he swallowed, broke off, tried again. His eyes narrowed at her. "Why the hell not?" he asked.

For a minute there, his dark look and harsh tone reminded her of someone. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

She shrunk back a bit. Tried to avoid answering out right. She couldn't really tell him that her Senshi magic would deal with this and also she would get into a hell lot of trouble. "I'm… It looks worse than it is. I'll go see a doctor in the morning."

He pursed his lips.

She swallowed. Wracked her brain for more innocent truths. She finally settled on, "my parents don't know I'm not home. I snuck out. I need to go home."

He deflated. "Oh," he breathed. Then his brow creased, moving the mask ever so slightly. "But surely—"

She interrupted him. "I'm just... gonna go home, ok?"

He opened his mouth. It looked like he wanted to argue, then closed it again. His eyes had turned impossibly tender. "Can I… can I help you get home? At least?"

She threw him a long, searching look. "…Sure."

Well, she supposed he _was_ the kind of person to fuzz over someone's safety. No doubt. But… this was… this seemed almost personal to him.

With that Usagi hobbled on, trying to mask the groans she'd previously allowed to openly jump off the empty nighttime streets without a care. But one cringe and she felt him hover.

It was almost endearing the way he seemed to battle with himself. If she were Sailor Moon, he'd have no qualms to pick her up immediately. Battle routine will kill all sense of personal space.

But here, he was absolutely polite and very, very concerned.

"I can… carry you… If that's ok," he mumbled, agitated.

She lifted her eyes up to him. "…Sure," she breathed, once more. Afterwards, she held her breath.

Then she felt his gloved hands again. It was a touch that should have been familiar. A touch she'd felt so, so often this past year. These strong, familiar hands and arms slipping around her form, behind her knees, cradling her to his own body like so.

Yet, it had never felt so gentle or careful. Tuxedo Mask touched Usagi as if she were something fragile that he needed to protect at all cost.

Then soft, expectant eyes fell back on hers.

"Where to?" he asked.

She blinked, shook out of it, then gave directions. Obviously, being a super heroine herself, she should have expected him to not just walk there, and yet she still gave a surprised shriek when he jumped, catapulting himself off the asphalt and took to the rooftops. Her hair fluttered in the wind with his cape.

"Sorry," he said, immediately. "Is this too much? Am I hurting you?" he asked, slowing once on the roof of the building they'd just stood in front of.

"Um… no," she murmured. "I was just… surprised."

His mouth twisted into a grin, and then a wink, and Usagi couldn't fight the surprised blush.

…Tuxedo Mask did not act this way around Sailor Moon. Definitely not.

She stayed silent for the majority of the very warm and comfortable 'ride', and so did he, and all too soon she could make out the rooftops near her home, seeing as she'd traveled these skies quite a few too many times before. She bit back her remark about the slippery slant of the roof coming up just in time – civilians had no business being familiar with the faulty rooftop architecture surrounding their neighborhood after all, and cringed when he promptly stumbled on it, jostling her injured leg in the process.

"I'm sorry!" he yelped, then shifted. His touch had grown even more careful, and so had his slowed down steps.

But this was too soon. She'd be home too soon. Panicked, her voice came out squeaky.

"Tuxedo Mask?!" she rasped.

"Yes?"

Her heart beat a little too fast. "Can I ask you a question?"

"That depends," he winked at her.

She flushed. "Um, why… why do you do this?"

He frowned, his eyes turned down to her, and she rested her cheek against his shoulder. The black fabric of the Tuxedo felt warm beneath her skin.

"Get you home?" he asked, brow furrowed.

"Um, no…" she faltered. "Why do you fight the youmas?"

He focused on her eyes with a long, blank look. Leapt a gap between rooftops without moving his eyes away.

"That's… a complicated question," he said eventually.

Usagi nodded into his shoulder with a sigh. "It's ok if you can't answer…" And then, "I'm in the yellow house up ahead…"

He nodded, and then shrugged. He barely thought before he answered. It surprised Usagi. Tuxedo Mask was definitely far from someone who offered information freely, usually. At least with the Senshi.

"I have several reasons," he said, eyes flicking between hers and the rooftops. "One is very selfish. The other is just… it's the right thing to do, if I can, don't you think?"

He slowed to a stroll. Her house was just two rooftops away now.

"What's the selfish reason?" she asked, voice hurried.

He shrugged, then stopped. They were looking down at her house from the way higher rooftop across from hers. With a sigh, she nodded towards her balcony. "I'm looking to gain a few memories," he said.

She frowned. "Of… being a super hero?"

He shook his head no. "No," he said. Then turned his smile back down to her, "Although moving around like this certainly has its perks, don't you think?"

He nodded behind her, and she twisted to look.

He'd meant the view. Yes. She knew what he meant. Nighttime Tokyo didn't really sleep. Not exactly. Looking across the skyline it glowed with rich and dark and neon colors. Towering above and so relatively close to where she lived stood Tokyo Tower. Only still just illuminated. It was nearing midnight after all.

Usagi had seen this lots of times, and yet she could see it a thousand more and she'd still gasp at its beauty. And so she did.

He chuckled softly at her. And then he leapt, cape flying, off the taller building, and landed in front of her room gracefully with bent knees and a careful hold on her.

She clawed her fingers into his cape reluctantly when he finally settled her on her feet. She really didn't want to let go. She wanted more of his openness.

He tipped his top hat at her with a small, playful smile and then turned to jump away.

"I'm Usagi!" she called. He faltered, twisted back to look at her.

"It's nice to… uh… get to know you, Tuxedo Mask."

Not a lie.

He smiled. It carried something. His eyebrows lowered, his expression so… soft.

Then she giggled. It ended in a happy sigh. He looked at her quite oddly. He _had_, after all, just carried her home because she'd been beaten up by monsters.

After a beat, she spoke her mind.

"I don't think you have a selfish bone in your body," she said.

He sighed, before it turned into a smile.

"Go see your doctor in the morning, ok?" he admonished, but his smile didn't falter.

Usagi nodded curtly, grinning, and flicked her fingers in a mock little salute, teeth showing in her smile.

His lips quirked up. "Stay this cheerful, ok? Never change," he said.

Usagi blinked, fingers still lifted to her brow and her heart skipped a beat.

Then he touched his lips to her knuckles before letting go of her completely, and jumped, still facing her, backwards off her balcony.

She didn't even hear a thud. He was just gone.

Her heart hadn't calmed down for the rest of the night.

And for the rest of the day, and the day after that.

She'd practically skipped through her days that weekend. Had been able to completely block out Mamoru-baka when he'd blown up in her face after he interrogated her about the bruise on her cheek and she'd admitted that she hadn't gone to see her doctor yet and probably wouldn't because it wasn't so bad after all. Had just smiled dreamily, head miles away, as he threw a complete and over-the-top rude fit over what she'd been doing at a youma battle anyway.

Yeah, it hadn't mattered at all. She was in love, and the world was a beautiful place.

She'd had a crush before. She was in love, afterwards.

She'd been a weird mess in the following battles. The routine she and Tuxedo Mask had acquired was just… disrupted. By her, and by the way her heart stumbled around him from then on.

She'd… tried everything, following that night. Tried to engage him in conversation after the deed was done, _fell_ more, so he would touch her more. She flirted, she praised him, she jumped into attacks for him, she did her friggin best just so he'd see her from her best, dedicated side.

He never smiled at her as softly as he had that night on her balcony.

By the time she'd turned 18, she was sick of this feeling. The feeling of unrequited love, of sighing into the distance and sighing when she saw his face looking back at her from her mother's tabloids and sighing when he dashed away from her after a battle.

The night she'd attempted to confess and the moment he had understood what Sailor Moon was trying to do had been… not very pleasant. His eyes had been so alarmed and so wide and so frightened and full of… It had looked like pity and compassion and warm, tender understanding and she snapped her mouth shut and kept herself from hearing the rejection.

She'd hated sighing by that point. But if Sailor Moon didn't impress him… what chance did clumsy, crybaby, brash Tsukino Usagi ever have?

Odango Atama.

She'd been in love with Tuxedo Mask for so long, she really hadn't noticed the way Mamoru had started to confuse her so much, so steadily.

'I _am_ an idiot'…

It had been easy to crush for a gorgeous super hero with smooth lines and who whisked her away from danger, pep-talked her through every insecurity, risked his life for her, and then treated her like she was the most special person in the world when she'd currently just been _Usagi_ and when he was injured himself.

She had no friggin idea why she was _also_ crushing on the guy who flew off the handle when talking to her, insulted her at every turn, made fun of her, rolled his eyes at her, treated her as if she was the most frustrating person on the planet.

The guy with the hot-headed stare and the vulnerable eyes and the surprisingly intense concern when she wasn't doing alright, with the tense mouth and the deep sighs.

Though, really, he _hadn't_ been that bad in the past year. And it wasn't like she didn't give back just as she got it. She'd called him some _really_ mean things over the years, after all. And he always took it with that cocky grin and the flashing eyes. This had been their way from the start.

It made no fucking sense, that fickle heart of hers.

* * *

_So, while I was in my academic thesis-exile, I spent the little, little time that I had that was not dedicated to work&academia very unapologetically with amazing, ship-py, fanfiction-y, glorious things meant purely for leisure and enjoyment. Two of the few things on this list included the book "The Hating Game" by Sally Thorne (a fanfiction writer turned book author! One of us, guys!) as well as binging on Miraculous Ladybug. So, for those who don't know these: A DELICIOUS enemies-to-lovers trope book filled with more delicious trope goodies, and a show (and its numerous fics) that lives off the big reveal as well as complicated dynamics between superheros and their civilian selves._

_Both of these things influenced this fic (in the Ladybug-case, I "love-squared them up" ;) ), and are totally the reason why I'm having a Season 1 AU phase. So, blame those (and the people at fault for recommending these things to me lol, you know who you are ;) )_

_Next Up: Items_

_Let me know what you think! _


	3. Items

_It's midnight in my parts of the world again! So here you go, here's day three for MamoUsa Week for you! I hope you like it, and would love to hear from you!_

* * *

Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

* * *

Day 3: Items

* * *

_I _am_ an idiot._

… what the fuck had he _meant_.

She was going insane. Was he being cute? Was he coming on to her? Was it just one more of his sexy flirts that he ultimately didn't mean?

Was he _actually_ interested in her?

It had been days. This needed more drastic measures. Sure, she could just… ask him. But that was hella scary. It was better to just… find out.

She peered around the corner of the building she was hiding behind. Could make him out as he crossed the street back to where he'd parked his bike half an hour ago.

"You're being ridiculous," was Luna's stern-looking verdict. "Not to mention really irresponsible. I do not support this."

She didn't look down at Luna. Her eyes were glued to Mamoru. "And yet you follow me around to watch," Usagi deadpanned.

"I'm not saying I'm not curious," Luna said, eyes around the building as well. "I'm just saying it's wrong and a misuse of the pen."

"I don't see you stopping me," Usagi said.

Luna's little kitty shoulders gave a little kitty shrug as she sighed. "And miss this?"

She raised her transformation pen.

Today's transformation was really uninspired, but she _was_ getting desperate. Why would he not flirt with her, whoever she turned into? Wasn't he a flirt? _Wasn't he?_

Clad in shiny new magically apparated biker boots and auburn braid over leather jacket, she stalked Mamoru some more, catching him just before he climbed his motorcycle.

* * *

So far, she'd snuck around him as a Maid-Dreaming maid in a big teal wig trying to fake-lure him into coming into her nonexistent maid-café and flirt him up quite... eagerly. He hadn't even LOOKED. Just passed her by, ignoring her completely.

When she transformed into the happy-go-luckiest-waitress as he sat outside on the iron chairs of the cafeteria just off campus, he brusquely ran over all attempts of her flirting and then later complained to the other staff (mostly due to the fact that his mocha-heavy order obviously didn't arrive when he orders from fake waitresses but also to complain about her attitude. The manager had looked confused. Only guys worked there that day.)

The time she transformed into a particularly adorable looking train operator when she found out his IC card was acting up, and he needed to go through staff to exit the metro stations for a couple days? He'd _avoided_ her and her cute little uniform, even when she basically _ran_ at him. Went to the man instead who _actually_ worked there. The cheek.

The next time, she'd changed strategy. Maybe he wasn't into cheerful, loud and bubbly? So really, one point on the 'he's just playing around and not really into you' margins of this investigative case.

So, she'd started transforming into what she imagined was exactly his type.

One day she was a tall, stunning, brunette doctorate student with thick sexy librarian glasses and a sleek laptop. She'd sat directly across from him in his library, surfing the net pretending to do Important Research and hiding manga behind a medical book for four hours straight. All the while she watched him in those obnoxiously sexy reading glasses bent over heavy tomes and occasionally taking ridiculously neat notes on them.

The first three hours, whatever she did, from stretching languidly to crossing and uncrossing those pencil-skirted legs to accidentally brushing his legs underneath the table while doing so? He did. not. look. up.

It was three hours in that she got him to notice her. It was her _sneeze_ of all things, and she froze - she _really_ had a distinct sneeze. High pitched, short and what Mamoru had repeatedly called too adorable with a roll of his eyes and a smirk in the past.

She'd sneezed, eyes wide afterwards, and Mamoru's head had _snapped up _and found her eyes. He looked bewildered, searching, and a little confused. Once his eyes finally seemed to focus on her, they turned absolutely blank, and subsequently moved away from her in one smooth scan of the place. He looked behind her, searching. Turned and twisted in his seat, looking. Shaking his head, he'd gone back to his notes. He hadn't looked at her again, not even when she left and staged a big drop of her incognito bookload right by his side.

So, she'd mimed more perfect girls. Museum-worker. Art gallery-person. Book author. Sexy scientist. Shy-looking scientist. Any scientist. Model. 'They' threw himself at him in restaurants, at crossings, in his classes, as his fake new neighbor right in his apartment building, and she flirted so hard and shamelessly it was ridiculous. All of them with the same reaction: None at all.

And so, she'd changed tactics. Next up, she'd transformed into women _she_ found attractive. Anything from red-haired and freckled with soft skin to what she remembered her kindergarten teacher with the amazing smile and pretty, full curves to have looked like. Sat next to him as the dark skinned beauty that made her mouth run dry who worked in that little boutique in the back streets around Omotesando, down at the ramen shop he sometimes went to for lunch (she'd learned _quite _a lot of his schedule and habits during this endeavour...).

Her _mother_ at the supermarket (attempting to flirt with him in THAT disguise had felt _weird_.)

When she'd transformed to look like Rei, it had been the only time she'd actually so much as gotten him to really talk to her - but even _then,_ he'd only asked after her, after Usagi. He hadn't even so much as _glanced down_ at the _stunning_ outfit the pen had pasted onto Rei's spectacular body.

What the fuck did it take to get this guy to flirt back at someone that wasn't Tsukino Usagi?!

Was he gay, maybe?

So, she'd started transforming into gorgeous men. All kinds. From looking like they could be his long-lost sibling to hipster Shimokitazawa boys with man-buns and funny tote bags.

Nothing. Same reaction to the girls' faces she'd donned around him so plentiful. None at all.

(Tho, turns out, Usagi made for really pretty boy transformations.)

She was confused. Maybe he... just ... only considered people he already knew? Maybe he was _really, really_ short-sighted without his glasses?

Maybe he..._wasn't_ a flirt? Maybe he was just like that when he was with her...?

Then she got desperate. All bets were off. Her transformations turned almost random. Chubby salarymen. Celebrities, old and young. A postman. A policewoman. Grandpa Hino.

No one. He was flirting with no one.

Usagi was about to transform into a tourist, asking him for directions and sending him lots of winks while doing so, when he caught her eye across the street in the doorway she was sitting and watching him from. _Usagi's_ eye.

She froze.

She hadn't actually talked to him since the whole 'I _am_ an idiot' thing.

Well, she _had_. A _lot_. But not as _Usagi_.

He looked like he belonged on a friggin billboard as he jogged across the street in that white T-shirt and the black-rimmed sunglasses. Ugh.

And well, _he _didn't seem to look phased. In fact, approaching her as she stubbornly chose to remain seated on the steps of this random doorway, that sexy, _flirty_ smirk was _finally_ back on his lips.

_Ugh_.

"Are you lost?" he said in lieu of a greeting.

She frowned at him, he nodded at the door behind her.

"This is not where you live, Odango Atama." His smirk had the audacity to fall into the way too sweet version of his half-smile.

She raised an eyebrow. "You know where I live?"

That seemed to take him aback. He recoiled just that little bit, then stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. Didn't answer, but kept his eyes on her in that intense level of _extremely focused_ that she now knew he really simply _did not do_.

In fact, he really _barely_ looked at _anyone_.

What was he looking at when he looked at her like this?! ?

"How are you?" The words were out of her mouth, along with a frown, before she could stop them.

_Danger, danger, too polite,_ her mind screeched at her. This was not their way.

He frowned, shifted a bit from foot to foot in front of her perch on the stairs and found him quite disconcertingly pretty when she had to look up at him like this.

His hand disappeared into his thick, black hair. "Uh... to be honest?" he said with a tilt of his head. "I'm having a ...weird week."

She bit the insides of her cheek to not react to that. "Oh?"

His frown turned just that little deeper. "Yeah… . It's…" He looked up into the distance, trying to find words with briefly widening eyes and quite the weirded out shake of his head, and then seemed to give up and say something else. "I'm pretty sure a security guard at my university just contemplated trying to grab my butt."

She couldn't keep the quick quirk of her lips from her face, but smoothed it back over almost immediately. "Oh? How would you like that?"

"He was like 80?" He blinked at her in confusion.

"And...?"

More blinking. "...um."

She threw up her arms, completely exasperated. "Who WOULD you want to grab your butt, then?!"

His eyebrows flew up into his hairline at her frustrated reaction. Yeah, that _would_ appear like a strange reaction, wouldn't it?

His smile transformed in front of her, quirking up into something mischievous, and she _swore_ she felt her panties' sudden need to self-destruct just by the intensity of that look.

"Are you offering, Odango Atama?"

She felt her own eyes narrow so hard and fierce he took a step back and held up his hands.

_Now_ he was flirting?! After she'd thrown herself at him as _any other person on the fucking planet_?!

* * *

It was her very last resort. If this did not work, she didn't know what else to do to keep from letting the realisation sink in that Chiba Mamoru _was_ in fact perhaps probably maybe interested in her.

Sailor Moon sat, feet dangling from the low, red-bricked archway, up on top of the entrance of Keio when he left the library just after nightfall as one of the last students on site.

"Hi," she said, rather meekly, from up above to get his attention.

He nearly jumped out of his skin.

His eyes were wide as saucers as he looked up at her from down below the archway. "Uh... Hi..."

She licked her lips. A few beats of silence passed that she _felt_ on her skin. This had been a better idea in theory.

It was him who broke the silence, his brow furrowed into a deep, almost unsure looking frown. Very, very different from the usual cocky smirk. Though she couldn't deny that this time, his eyes were completely focused on her, too.

"Um…" he started "…did you find out that…" he broke off again, frowned at her so deeply it looked like a glare.

Sailor Moon cocked her head. What?

"I mean, are you… looking for someone else…?" His whole posture was guarded. Careful … Suspicious? "In… me?"

His hands were buried deep, deep in his pockets. Black jeans this time. Green cardigan. What was it with him and this color?

And why was he acting so… weird?

I mean, she supposed it _was_ weird meeting a superheroine in real life, but…. Shouldn't he be… nervous? Not… this? Whatever this was?

He swallowed. Still that intense look. Tried again. "Is there something you um… need my help with?"

She blinked slowly. "…No," she said. "Why would I need your help?"

"Oh. Um…" He snapped his mouth shut so hard it looked almost uncomfortable.

He was behaving… really off. She'd thrown himself as tons of people into his path this week, had done the same to him as herself for _years_, and he'd _never_ had any trouble talking to her, or not talking to her for that matter, as was the case this week. He'd always been someone who knew what to say.

This was the first time she'd ever seen him that he was at a loss for words. That he seemed he like he didn't know what to say. Even more than that; he seemed to straight up… _guard_ his words`?

"I mean," Sailor Moon shifted, felt the blood rush into her head and grow hot. Even the thought of attempting to flirt with him in costume was somehow way, way harder than in random people's skins.

She settled on a suggestive tone, a bat of her eyelashes. "I _could_ use your help," she breathed.

He nodded. He built himself up, shoulders straight. Looked as if he had found a truth in her eyes and…what? What was it he thought he saw? "Right. Of course. I'll be there. Where is the…" He trailed off, eyebrows lifting again. "What do you need my help with?"

She scooted forward a bit, crossed one leg over the other a bit too slowly.

He just stood there waiting.

She hrmphed. "I'm trying to test a theory," she finally said.

He blinked. The confused look was back in his eyes.

Then it turned again. He nodded. "About me," he said. Eyes sure. It wasn't a question.

"About you, yes," she said. It was her turn to frown. He was a rollercoaster of hesitation and assurance and it was really, really confusing.

"The answer is yes," Mamoru said, chin up, eyes determined.

She threw him a level, unblinking look. "You don't even know the question."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I know the question," he threw back.

She swallowed. The orange light from the lanterns reflected on his form and the cobble stones beneath his feet in the dark. He was looking back at her with challenging, steady eyes and she had no fucking clue what the challenge was.

"You… do?" she asked dumbly, clawing her gloves into the masonry of the archway.

He simply nodded.

Another beat of pressing silence, and no change on his steady, focused, serious gaze. Somewhere in the distance a group of students laughed, and it jump-started both of them.

"Right," he said, shifting. "So, there's no danger?"

Usagi's eyebrows scrunched back together. "No…" she said.

He nodded once more, looked around uncomfortably, then back to her. He looked to be considering something. Then he resumed walking.

"Okay then…" he said. But just as he passed under the archway out of her sight and back the other side, he turned back around, craned his neck to look up at her.

She twisted around, popped her leg out to straddle the structure.

"Um… if you ever _were_ to come get me? I'm… I would," he told her carefully. "… of course."

Um… what? She leaned forward, allowing all the confusion onto her face.

She saw a flash of white teeth before he bit his lip almost self-consciously. Then his face smoothed back into his neutral mask. "You know, should you be… in need of a rose? Or two?"

Her eyes widened. Holy shit. Holy—

He turned back sideways, looking over his shoulder. "Okay. Well, um, I'll… I'll go home then," he said.

Her throat was screaming. Everything was screaming. How _did_ she find her voice?

"Yes. Yes, you do that," she managed. Barely.

_Holy shit._

Holy fucking _shit_.

She watched his back, shoulders tense, hands in his pocket, walk out towards the imposing structure that was Keio's main entrance building, down its arching stairs and out towards the busy streets of Mita.

Holy _shit_.

Mamoru was Tuxedo Mask.

Mamoru was _Tuxedo Mask._

Once he was out of sight, Sailor Moon fell off the archway with a painful thud.

In her absolute shock, she forgot to consider that no, Mamoru _hadn't_ flirted with Sailor Moon, _either_.

* * *

_So, this is kiiiiind of my first reveal fic, I guess? And so, naturally, writing this, I kept thinking about Kasienda's reveal series. Which, ya know, if you haven't read yet, you totally should ;) _

_Anyway also obviously Usagi is a disaster here and stalking is only funny when done by the OTP and really actually very creepy lol. Just sayin. _


	4. AU

_Day 4 of MamoUsa Week! And good god guys, we have some AMAZING fic during this week?! I am so delighted?! Anyway, eternal thanks to my privately enslaved beta, Uglygreenjacket. Thank you, love!_

* * *

Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

* * *

Day 4: AU

* * *

She'd spent the whole weekend lying on her bed clutching her Tuxedo Mask doll and despairing over the number of times she'd called _Tuxedo Mask_ a jerk.

_Oh god._

Maybe this was all a giant, bad, awful joke of a dream? Maybe she'd just stepped into the twilight zone, or some bizarro alternative universe created by the latest youma and she'd just… not noticed?

Walking fashion disaster. A creep. A cheat. His purple pleated pants (and yes, she had noticed he'd stopped wearing them. Had brushed up his wardrobe over the years, probably in part due to her ridicule of it.) The kiddie train (which suddenly made a lot of sense. He'd just been there stalking the same youma they had.) Come to think of it, _all_ the times Chiba Mamoru had showed up in places where he was inconvenient, because they'd been on a mission and he was a civilian complicating things with his presence… not so much as it had seemed at the time.

She'd literally _thrown_ her _shoes_ at him. _Several times_.

Oh _god_, he could never find out. If he _ever_ found out it had been _Sailor Moon_ calling him all these things, Usagi would die of mortification.

There was not a person in the world who had seen her at her worst as spectacularly and regularly as Chiba Mamoru did. It was their thing.

And he was _Tuxedo Mask_.

Someone just kill her now.

Come Monday she'd calmed down enough to figure that if Mamoru just _never saw her_ _again_, he might eventually forget, and she might then have a chance with him. (Obviously that plan still had some flaws.)

And thus, she got showered, banished the Tuxedo Mask doll from her bed and put him back on her bedside table where he now mockingly watched her every move worse than Luna ever had, and set out to function once again. Starting with drowning her sorrows in pastry and steering straight to the Family Mart nearest to her home.

So what? So, she'd just accidentally stalked Tuxedo Mask for a week and uncovered his identity in the process without meaning to. These things happened, right?

Right. It wasn't so bad, really, it wasn't.

And then she saw him. He turned the corner of Juuban-dori _right in front of her_, and Usagi froze.

The second he met her eyes two things happened.

His eyes simultaneously lit up and became that exasperating shade of cocky –

And she promptly fell on her ass.

Usagi cursed loudly, rubbing her butt, until a familiar hand reached out into her field of vision, palm out, holding out his hand to help her up.

She looked up and stared.

How. How had she never recognised these eyes, the curve of his lips, the set of his jaw? _How_?

Mamoru was smirking, hand held out. "Why, why Odango," he drawled. "Are you falling for me?"

Right. That's why. Because HOW THE FUCK WAS _THIS_ TUXEDO MASK?!

Yeah. She did not have a comeback. Her brain wasn't working. So instead, she just kept on staring and mumbled a squeaky little, "yeah…".

He inclined his head, looking at her oddly. His inky black hair moved across his forehead with the movement.

She wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers through his hair. To have him fall asleep on her lap while she stroked those silky strands. To fall asleep herself and wake up with her face pressed against it.

"You okay, Usagi?"

The concerned tone and use of her actual name broke her out of her stupor and she realised with a slap to her gut and other insides that he was crouching in front of her now, legs spread and one hand on his knee, the other still outstretched towards her, elbow propped on his other knee.

It was the exact posture Tuxedo Mask so often landed in when jumping from more or less high above. His black, delicious jeans pulled at his delicious thighs in exactly the same delicious way the tuxedo trousers so often did.

"Hey…" His eyes were full on tender now, his brow twisted in a mix of caring and incomprehension.

Right. No. This was Tuxedo Mask no two doubts about it. The sweetest, best man in the world. And she'd called him a jerk about a thousand times.

She finally found her voice. It was buried somewhere deep with her embarrassment and it came out in the from of a squeaky, undignified rendition of "Uh'm fine."

She ignored his hand, not trusting her trembling fingers, and instead picked herself up with a fist pressed into her own thighs and a shuddering breath.

He followed her up just after, and for a second, just before he did, she had the unforgettable view of him crouched below her, looking up at her with concerned, dark eyes.

And then he was back to towering over her. She'd held her breath when he stood up, his eyes never leaving hers, felt her body flush with heat when his eyes and mouth passed hers before overshooting as he grew to his full height.

She felt the tense muscles in her face, the furrow of her brow, but she couldn't smooth the glare out.

But he met her stare with a deep frown of his own, his slightly alarmed eyes peering down at her, alternating between both of her eyes. He didn't say anything, either.

Though he was breathing a bit hard, she noticed.

Deciding she really couldn't do this, Usagi abruptly turned.

Pastry. She'd gone out for pastry and that's what she would do. Tuxedo Mamoru could be frustrating and confusing later. There. She'd decided.

But he didn't play along. Instead, he mutely followed her. And not even in the way they would usually play this game. None of their awkward dances of 'I'll walk you to the station' or pretending to be walking in the same direction anyway when they'd just run into each other coming from opposite sides that they'd perfected over the years. None of that. He just followed without comment.

He seemed to feel they were on the verge of something huge, too.

He followed her down the street, past the corner, through the sliding doors of her trusty Family Mart and passed her one of the green plastic shopping baskets without a word when she reached for it. She knew he'd done so with the most intense of intense eyes. She _felt_ them. They were glued to her even when she didn't look up once to meet them.

It was when she stopped in the pastry aisle in front of the cake shelf – and under his silent scrutiny began piling little plastic domed individual slices of strawberry shortcakes, creamy swiss rolls and other lifelines into her basket – that she found the courage to speak.

"Can I ask you something?" she mumbled.

She felt him stiffen beside her, saw the movement out of the corner of her eyes. He kept a polite distance to her that was just far enough that she didn't feel his clothes shift, but the air vibrated around him, and she might as well have.

"Of course," he answered.

She stubbornly kept focused on the cakes, turned a plastic wrapped piece in her hand as if studying it. "If you had an infinite number of tries. What would you do?"

She _heard_ his frown. "What do you mean?"

"Like. Parallel lives. Alternative universes. Anything is possible. How would you want to live your life? What would you do?" she said, putting the cake in her basket and then studying another one with too much fake intensity.

She felt him shift. He took a moment to answer.

"I guess I'd… always want to do something to help people. To protect people."

She sighed. _Of course, you would, Tuxedo Mask._

No. Chiba Mamoru. …His parents really chose a good name for him.

"Is that why you study medicine?" she asked the limited edition matcha and sakura cake.

She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye. "Maybe. Probably."

_Is that why you moonlight as a superhero?_

Obviously, it was.

Chiba Mamoru was a fucking spectacular person. He was good to the bone.

How had she not seen?

She swallowed, glared at the cake in her hand, put it back, and grabbed the next one. "Would you do things over? If you had the chance? Are there things you'd do differently?"

When the silence stretched a bit too long, Usagi ended up turning her head and looking up at him after all.

_Mistake_.

His eyes were fixed on her just as intently as she'd imagined them to be. He was looking at her as if she was the most frustrating puzzle in the world and it physically hurt him not to be able to solve it.

"There are a few things I wouldn't have said to you," he finally said.

She suddenly felt her pulse really hard.

"… me either," she whispered.

He opened his mouth in a sudden, small pop and Usagi realized with a sensation that ran down her entire body that he was… he was _trembling_.

"… like what, Usagi?" he whispered back.

When had he come so close?

She shrugged, felt her cheeks heat. Her embarrassment caught up with her and it made everything weird. _Like only _everything_ I've ever said to you_. But she didn't say this.

Instead she slipped. She was freaking out big time, and it was their dynamic, it was natural, it just came out like this, slipping past her lips, because this was Mamoru.

"I don't know," she said in an offhand tone with the ghost of her challenging grin moving onto her lips. "Maybe there's a universe you're not an ass to me all the time." _Or I to you._

He deflated, then huffed. "I'm _really not_, Usagi, I—"

But then her bravery was back, because _no_, no, go back to trembling, go back to letting me _affect_ you. She interrupted him.

"Maybe we're even a couple in like, one out of a thousand of these alternative universes, who knows."

He snapped his mouth shut.

She whirled back to the shelf with wide, shocked, embarrassed eyes and grabbed the nearest packaged treat for emotional support.

That charged silence, there is was again.

"Usagi?" he coaxed.

Reluctant in a way she felt it as a full-body goosebump rash, she turned unsure eyes back to him.

He took a step forward, invading her personal space. She had to crane her neck up to see him like this, and he was licking his lips.

His voice was impossibly low when he spoke next.

"… I'd like this one to be the one."

Usagi blinked up at him in confusion.

He cleared his throat, but then bent a little in the knees, moving his eyes closer towards her own vision as he peered down at her.

"The universe we're a couple in. I'd like it to be this one," he said.

She knew her eyes were wide. She recognized the unsure slump of his shoulders and the way his hands once again hid in the pockets of his pants as he stood there _waiting,_ and she just said _nothing_ in her shock.

And then she'd waited too long. Because he nodded sharply and his eyes hardened and he mumbled an excuse and barely said goodbye and she had a view of his back as he disappeared through the sliding doors. Afterwards, she just stood there frozen, watching the spot he'd vanished from with an open mouth and a boxed slice of red velvet cake raised dumbly in her hand.

Right… turns out she'd forgotten one important information during her weekend freak-out. That there had been a _reason_ why she'd been stalking Mamoru.

Which meant… If _Mamoru_, then… _Tuxedo Mask_ was perhaps probably maybe just that little bit apparently low-key interested in her civilian self.

_Holy shit._

* * *

_So, obviously, to make today's theme fit with the rest of a consecutive story, I had to get a bit creative lol. _

_Let me know what you think, I love to hear from you!_


	5. First Kiss

_Aaaand today's prompt for MamoUsa Week was 'First Kiss'! That one, obviously, was a little more straight forward than the last one, haha. So, have fun!_

_My eternal thanks, as always, go to my beta, Uglygreenjacket! _

* * *

Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

* * *

Day 5: First Kiss

* * *

For the next few days, Usagi did not run into Mamoru.

He was nowhere to be found. She hung around in the manga section of the bookshop on Juuban-dori that he usually frequented for nerd-stuff and she knew he ordered the most random stacks of books from, like, weekly. Even when she deliberately stuck around from the time his classes would end to closing hours on the day he'd usually pick his orders up, he was a complete no-show.

She even sat in the picture window of Oslo café, conveniently located just outside his apartment complex, and stared out that window like a hawk all evening. She didn't see him.

Not at the Crown nor the Fruit Parlor. She had half a mind to waltz back into his library but…

Then she found his motorcycle parked near a bus stop and just… sat on it. For three hours she sat on his bike in the hopes he would come back to retrieve it.

No Mamoru.

She'd made an _effort_ to see him. She'd never before _had_ to. He was always just _there_. Now he wasn't and she started to wonder if it _hadn't_ been coincidence that she usually ran into him so effortlessly pretty much daily.

But he was nowhere to be found, absolutely nowhere, and Usagi was freaking out again. Had she ruined this? Of course, she'd ruined this. She'd ruined this from the fucking start, every day of the past 2 ½ years that she hadn't understood what was right in front of her.

What was right in front of her was not Tuxedo Mask. Well, he _was_, but… What had been right in front of her had been Chiba Mamoru, those vulnerable eyes of his, the easy smile he had for her, and the way her heart had skipped every time he'd trained both of those on her. For _years_.

She'd been so busy mooning over Tuxedo Mask and pushing down every ounce of attraction for Chiba Mamoru in the process that she hadn't noticed the way she flushed when he was near, the way he made her skin prickle in excitement, the way she went out of her every way to spend as much time in his proximity as she possibly could whenever he was around, only to think about him long, long after.

Turns out her heart hadn't been fickle at all.

By Friday Usagi was both pissed and terrified. What if he never wanted to see her again?

The memory of his eyes flashed in her mind. Dark blue, intense, vulnerable. The memory of his back as he fled, two times, because she was too shocked stupid to reply, or even to get it, and he too… (too what? Too nervous?) to stick around.

It was stuck on repeat in her mind. His eyes. His hands in his pockets. His back walking away from her.

_I _am_ an idiot._

_I'd like it to be this one._

It drove her mad.

Friday nights were usually the nights all her friends were busy with life and after-work-izakaya obligations and dates, and because she wasn't prepared to go stir crazy over Chiba Mamoru this particular Friday night, she'd gladly agreed to come help Umino at his weird university mixer.

Until she'd gotten there, been put in a pink sash and trotted around the room like a prize. Apparently "helping" Umino had meant her trying to charm every single last person at this party, paraded from one to the next. He'd helped organize this thing for the foreign exchange program, and it also contained some people Umino really wanted to be on his researching group yet lacked the guts to small talk with. Somehow he'd gotten it stuck in his head it would be easier if _she _broke the ice _for _him...

It hadn't helped that every attempted flirty line that was sent her way reminded her of different, _smoother_ flirts that she'd just… not _understood_ over the years.

By the time she'd stepped foot onto to the Tozai line her shoulders ached, and she was too tired to even wack Umino across the head or just wave him off.

She sighed, reaching for the nearest pivoted handle overhead and closed her eyes, then opened them up again immediately.

Whenever she closed them, she saw his face.

She changed trains at Iidabashi. Frowning deeply, she took out her phone, scrolled through her messages, scowled at one from Umino, apologizing profusely, and another one from Naru, assuring her she had no idea and she would have stopped him if she had.

The Toei Oedo line was pretty empty when she stepped on it, and she dropped into the nearest seat without looking up.

She typed out a text to Minako, asking if she had time for a late anime marathon after work. The reply came immediately in the form of a selfie at a work party, and Usagi pouted at it.

Scrolling through pixiv because she had nothing better to do really, sighing deeply, she let her head rest against the stanchion right beside her head.

She started awake when the train jostled as it set off from a station, and she looked around disoriented and alarmed. Had she missed her stop?

"Tsukishima is next," a voice said above her.

She blinked. The train was suddenly packed much tighter with people. A guy about her age stood right in front of her in the aisle between seats, arm hanging from a grab handle.

Good. Didn't miss her stop.

She smiled up at him. "Thanks," she said, crinkling her nose.

He smiled back. Then he nodded at her chest.

"Ambassador of cute girls?" he read off of her with a sly but kind of sweet grin.

She cocked her head in confusion. Then she looked down at herself. Right… yeah, she _was_ still wearing that silly pink sash with the white bold characters declaring her said ambassador. She felt her cheeks heat.

"Uh, yeah…" she mumbled. "Forgot to take that off…"

He was still smiling. Somehow it suddenly didn't feel right that it wasn't a smirk, and his height was wrong, and his eyes weren't blue, and…

"What was it for?" he asked innocently enough, voice low as to not disturb the other passengers.

Usagi sighed long and hard. "My friend's idea of what you can do with your single friends," she said halfway between a whine and a groan.

His voice was all amused if hushed laugh. "Oh?"

She regarded him with a look for a second, and deciding he seemed nice enough and she really didn't _have_ anyone to vent to. And while she usually really hated to prove everyone right and be that person on the train that was the only one who was talking, sure half the car would listen in, she decided it was Friday night and she was known to be loud anyway and that she really didn't care. So, she shrugged and explained.

"I have this friend who is really awkward with people who was in charge of an event that required him to people." She tensed her face into a pouty glare and it must have looked cute, the guy laughed and cocked his head slightly to the side, his arm swinging with the handle. "I went for moral support and moral support obviously included speed-dating a bunch of exchange students to prove a point."

"Ah," he said, laughing. "How did that go, then?"

"I'm ready to kill my friend," she said, face all glare still.

He laughed. "So, I'm guessing still single, then?"

Usagi faltered, reeling back a little and looking up at him.

Mamoru's face built itself up in her mind at the question like a screenshot pasted onto her eyelids. Towering over her with that cheeky smirk.

_Are you falling for me?_

She frowned. "Yeah…" she murmured distractedly.

His free hand flew to his neck. She could see a soft blush travel up his ears. "Right, um…"

His voice was suddenly sheepish. She would have found it adorable on a different day or maybe in a different life.

He pushed his hand into his pant-pocket and fished out a business card. "This is my stop," he said, nodding at the window behind her. They were approaching the next station. "But I'd love to hear from you, if you don't find this too forward."

He held out the card to her, letting go off the handle even when the train was stopping to give it to her with both hands and a little bow, and he needed to widen his stance to keep his balance while doing so.

She took it with wide eyes and nodded even as he cleared his throat, said goodbye, and moved out of the car with what felt like half the people in the train that felt suddenly much bigger and emptier.

Hayama Shono  
Actor

She studied the card in her hand with a frown. Actor? Had she seen him somewhere before?

When she glanced up, there he was.

Usagi almost recoiled with the intensity of her double take.

Mamoru sat in the seat right across from her, watching her straight on.

Her heartbeat picked up wildly.

But he didn't get up and he didn't say 'Hi,' he just watched her with this neutral expression that kind of looked… sad. Was it?

So, they just sat there staring at each other.

Usagi broke at Daimon station. When the train car filled up once again and people were re-shuffling to make room for the crowd moving into the car that would _definitely_ obstruct her view of him again, she moved like lighting. Usagi practically threw herself across the space between them and into the empty seat next to him.

He visibly jumped.

"Hi…" she breathed, turning towards him in the plush seat. Her knee brushed his in the process and he snapped both of his knees together.

His answer was a whisper, as was appropriate for the train. More appropriate than her volume, definitely. "Hi," he replied. He kept his gaze ahead, sighing.

"When did you get on?" she whispered.

Still, he wouldn't look.

"Two stops before you did," he answered up ahead.

Usagi blinked. Oh. Her brow tensed up again. "Why didn't you…"

He shrugged. "You seemed preoccupied," he said. Usagi was about to protest when he continued. "And then you fell asleep."

She huffed audibly.

"I would have woken you up once we got to Azabu-Juban," he mumbled.

She huffed once more, then straightened back up in her seat and sat the right way. She let the back of her head hit the window behind her with a thud. The reflection in the window opposite from them where she'd previously sat showed both of them next to each other, not at all touching. Mamoru's eyes were watching her in the reflection. When his gaze met hers in the window he averted his eyes immediately. Startled.

At the next stop, the person who'd sat on Usagi's other side got up and left the train.

One more stop to go.

She found reflection-Mamoru's eyes frowning at her chest.

She looked down, felt her face flame, and ripped that stupid sash off of her. How had she STILL not taken it off…

She heard him clear his throat beside her, but then he spoke. "So, speed-dating, yeah…"

Oh god. Had he heard all that? Of fucking course he had.

She fought the urge to flail her arms and scream at him at the top of her lungs that she wanted it to be this one, too. The universe they were a couple in. Instead she said, "I made it sound worse than it was."

He swallowed. His voice sounded hoarse. It broke a little under the strain to stay quiet. "Anyone you liked, then?"

She found reflection-Mamoru's eyes. Somehow, it seemed easier for him to face her through the glass.

God, why did he have to look so friggin' lickable.

"No," she frowned at him.

He pressed his lips together, frowned right back at her. "How about train-guy, then?" He nodded at the card that was still in reflection-Usagi's hand.

She crumpled the paper in her fist immediately. Then she turned, ripping her eyes away from reflection-Mamoru's, and turned to face actual-Mamoru.

His eyes were startlingly close when his eyes found hers. Without looking down, she uncurled his hand from where it was fiercely gripping his knee, and shoved the crumpled business card inside.

His hand was clammy. Warm.

"No," she repeated.

His eyes flashed wide.

And then the train drove into their station. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see reflection-Mamoru and Usagi vanish and be replaced by the platform that was Azabu-Juban station.

They got off in tense silence. On the escalator, he stood right behind her. And since he was a full head taller than her, their heights almost aligned like this and she felt it burning against her whole backside. He hadn't left a step empty between them – she could feel his breath against her neck.

Someone passed next to them, walking up the aisle left empty on the left side of the escalator. The man's messenger bag was about to whack her in the side, but Mamoru's arm shot out, hovering against her hip to block her from the harmless impact, then immediately retreated.

Her heart swelled, her throat constricted, her eyes pricked.

She kept her mouth shut. They were on a friggin escalator, she couldn't shout incoherent, confused confessions at him on an escalator.

When they got off and joined the crowd leaving through the IC gates, she briefly lost him. She looked around, alarmed and agitated, before she _felt_ his voice by her ear.

"I'm here," he murmured behind her, leaning down towards her.

Her heart was hammering in her chest and it made fumbling for her IC card in her handbag a troublesome task that took a while.

He patiently waited. Swiped his card out against the gates only after her.

One last escalator. Exit 4. He lived like friggin three steps away from Exit 4. It was not enough _time_.

They arrived outside, and she stopped, panicked, directly in front of the escalator and stood in the way of anybody else.

His body collided with hers with an 'oof,' his hands flying to her shoulders in reflex.

"Geez, Odango," he said, pushing at her shoulders gently but firmly, and she moved, her neck flushing hot.

It was her time to follow him stupidly without a word, his time to frown at her while she did that.

They stopped at the entrance to his apartment complex, right behind Oslo café, but he didn't turn to unlock the door.

It was late, the street was mostly deserted except for a few loud people exiting the izakayas and the station, a few salarymen returning home late, and a taxi here and there illuminating the red cobbles with their headlights.

He was towering over her like this, almost boxing her in with his tall form, peering down at her like that in this silent, intense stare.

She was being weird. She knew that. _They_ were being weird.

But she guessed it was their way.

She steeled her heart, decided to be brave.

"I want to kiss you," she said with the most unfitting glare.

He glared right back. "Do it," he challenged.

And then she clawed her fingers into his dark dress shirt and yanked him down towards her, his hands immediately flying up to cradle her cheek, her chin.

He met her lips half-way and she swore he _whimpered_ at their impact. His lips were soft, warm, trembling _magic_, and she clawed harder, one hand moving into his hair, pulling. It was as fucking soft as she'd always imagined.

His fingers twitched against her cheeks, pulling her face closer, his lips stroking, slipping, _caressing_ hers with the softest little noises.

His kiss felt like a desperate, yearning cry.

She felt his arms fly around her, press her to his form, and with a flex of his arms she was off her toes and she slid her hand up his chest and curled it securely around his neck, holding on.

With it, the angle changed. She no longer had to crane her neck, he no longer had to lean down, and when she nipped at his lower lip, somehow that broke something in him, as if all restraint snapped and vacated his brain.

Then his tongue was in her mouth and the kiss turned fast and urgent and she could _taste_ him. She felt her back hit solid surface behind her, and his whole body pinned her against the door. Oh _god_. She needed him to never stop.

She moaned, a desperate whimper of a moan straight into his mouth and she devoured him, hands buried in his hair and pressing him closer, closer, closer, tongue deep and stroking and tasting, his teeth against her lip, his own lips quivering beneath every brush and slip.

When he yanked his lips away from hers and he buried his face, panting, into the crook of her neck, she found one of her thighs lifted by his large, firm hand just behind her knee, pressed up around his side. Her other leg dangled freely, yet she wasn't afraid to fall, pressed up against him and his hold so securely. It was her time to whimper as she ran her fingers against his scalp on the back of his head and through his hair in fistfulls. She pressed his panting mouth closer to her neck.

_Holy fucking shit._

Her heart was pounding, her whole body was flushed, she had to bodily refrain herself from grinding against him, and his harsh breathing in her neck felt like delicious torture as she clawed herself into his hair and against his body.

But his arms around her went slack and her feet touched the ground as he let go of his tight hold on her and god, no, he _must_ have felt that too, right? It wasn't just her?

Wide, unblinking eyes met her own. He didn't speak.

She swallowed, straightened up, fixed her shirt and felt herself flush.

He took a step away, giving her space, and all of a sudden the noises around her were turned back on. Cars in the distance, someone laughing a street down, the low hum of the street lamps. They reminded her they were in public, against a door, and she'd been ready to crawl up his thighs and climb him right here.

Her embarrassment caught up with her and colored her cheeks.

His eyes simultaneously made her calm down and freak her out even more.

He was absolutely speechless.

With a beating heart, she turned to leave.

But before she did, she grabbed onto his shirt again, reaching up.

He came willingly, lips first, opening, puckering ever so slightly, but she turned her face and pressed her lips against his ear instead.

"I'm an idiot, too," she whispered.

* * *

_We're on the way to resolution, guys! Three more to go! Let me know how you like it, please! :)_


	6. Fight and Make Up

_Aaaaand it's Day 6 for MamoUsa Day! My beta Uglygreenjacket has been very patient with me while I yank these out (she's currenty basically working two full time jobs and yet betas for me at a moment's notice and I LOVE HER) and I hope you like what's coming even only half as much as her! _

_Also, thank you guys, each and every one of you who has reviewed! These events are always a little intense, what with the fast-paced schedule, and I appreciate the support SO much, you have no idea! And if you haven't, please check out the other fics specifically written for this event! You can all find them on Tumblr on the MamoUsa Week blog!_

* * *

Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

* * *

Day 6: A fight and a make up

* * *

She'd left without another word, and he let her because they were both idiots.

Overnight, Usagi had come to the conclusion that Tuxedo Mask didn't exist. Tuxedo Mask was just a costume, beneath it was only Mamoru.

It had been Mamoru, that night she fell in love with Tuxedo Mask. It had been Mamoru who saw Odanga Atama stumbling injured through the night, Mamoru who had been so concerned he'd forgotten to act like he didn't know her. It had been Mamoru who held her so carefully as he carried her home. Mamoru insisting she see a doctor in the morning. Mamoru who'd winked at her and kissed her hand. Just as it had been Mamoru blowing up in her face the next morning when she hadn't done what he'd asked, frustration whistling through his every pore and now allowed to let it loose without the mask.

It had been Mamoru. She was in love with Mamoru.

When she stepped out of Exit 4 after her horrendous job interview the next evening, her entire skin started to prickle. She was suddenly hyper aware he could be _anywhere_ here, hyper aware of the rumpled outfit she'd still thought looked sophisticated yet adorable only a minute ago, hyper aware of the door she was passing that she'd spent last night pressed up against and that really ought to be lit up in fluorescent colors or at least emphasized with magical floating neon arrows all around it.

She managed to pass it with only three sheepish, flushing glances. Sped up once she'd passed it completely as she noticed how much she'd slowed down around it.

Then she found herself hovering outside Oslo Café, contemplating to sit in the window again to see if he'd…

She shook her head, curled her fingers tightly around the strap of her purse like a lifeline, quickened her pace away from the tempting picture-windowed café and down the street, and decided to not be a creepy stalker for once. Maybe she could like, even call him? Like a normal person?

With a small stumble in her step on the red cobble stones, she realised she'd known Mamoru for 2 ½ years, but she did not have his number.

This was a man she saw pretty much every day. A man she had mutual friends with, a man she yelled at and cried at and hit with her shoes, a man she… the man she loved. And it was the man who had saved her life on numerous occasions, even if that info was new, and sure, she knew where his apartment lived because she tended to stalk him like a crazy person, but, officially? No. She didn't even have his number.

The thought terrified her. Made her realize that no, panty-combusting kisses or not, he was definitely nowhere near hers. He could decide to move tomorrow and hang up his cape and mask for good and she would never see him again.

The thought rang in her ears and it hurt in her chest.

Besides, he didn't know yet who it was he'd kissed last night.

These were the thoughts that hissed violently through her brain and tensed the muscles in her neck and stiffened up her spine and curled her stomach into knots when she froze in front of him.

His eyes found hers immediately, and while she stood rooted, clenching her fist into the hem of her blush-pink cardigan, he crossed the street, leather book bag swinging against his hips, and jogged the few remaining steps up to where she stood. He slowed down to a stop one person's width away from her.

His face really was way too criminally pretty to look at straight on. Especially now that she knew what these lips tasted like, and she felt his effect on her flush hot across her skin and up her ears and tingling down her toes in her pretty heels.

Especially because he was wearing his friggin reading glasses of all things. When had she developed _that_ kink?

To both her relief and utter disappointment, he shifted one hand up to his face, closed his eyes ever so briefly and took them off, before settling unblinking, unreadable eyes back down on her, silky hair falling into his face and all.

She wondered for a brief moment if she should maybe say something.

They'd stopped in the middle of the small square behind Kimi-chan statue right in the center of their home neighbourhood, trees lining them on either side. Two, three steps of his and the distance melted and kind of grew at the same time, as she would now have to crane her neck to look up at him, but stubbornly didn't. Instead, her eyes settled on the soft looking fabric of his black T-shirt, and she fought the urge to inhale and smell him like a creep.

One long finger curled beneath her chin, and delicately tilted her face up towards him.

He bit his lip, briefly, perfect white teeth indenting perfect flushed lips and then it was over, and the soft red flesh bounced back as if it hadn't been assaulted. His chest moved in that odd way that meant anticipation and also screamed 'terrified'.

He bent down slowly and she inhaled shakily, harshly through her nose as his lips connected back with hers as if he _also_ hadn't slept, as if this _also_ had been all he'd longed to do since their lips parted last the previous night.

No 'Hi'. No flirt camouflaged as an insult. Just his lips on hers like a greeting between lovers.

Very, very frightened lovers.

She should tell him. She needed to tell him. But she was irrationally, stupidly terrified about which of her two identities Mamoru would decide wasn't real when she did.

He tasted like coffee and sugar, and coffee and sugar had never tasted so good. The little noise that escaped her at the sensation of his hands slipping against her cheek and to the back of her head, and the soft, tender, warm slip of his lips against hers, would probably have embarrassed her if it hadn't elicited the smallest of gasps from him in return.

She should tell him. There were many things she should tell him.

She could start with something easy.

She lowered her heels back to the ground, and when their lips disconnected in the process, his brow furrowed, eyes closed, and his lips chased her with a barely audible whimper before he opened his eyes in that terrified, unsure alarm.

She felt her nose curl up as she scrunched her face up at him in a way that drove the alarm from his eyes and replaced it with a charmed glint in his eyes and the ghost of a smile that he obviously tried to fight.

A car drove by, a dog barked, and it reminded her of where they were. With renewed resolve, she reached out, ignored the way he moved a little closer to her touch and the way she felt his head move above her to watch, and took a sleek silver ballpoint pen with his name engraved on it from where it was clipped into his cardigan and pressed the cap. The nib twisted out and when she looked up, he'd raised one curved, judging eyebrow at her when she slipped one hand into his, twisted it palm up, and drew it towards the raised pen.

He sighed dramatically when she began to scribble on his hand.

"That breaks the pen, Odango Atama," he scolded, but she could hear the tenderness behind the indignation.

She rolled her eyes in great exaggeration, earning a chuckle from above, and finished up by signing his skin with a doodle of a bunny.

He lifted his hand from hers, brought it up to read, then threw her an annoyed look and held his palm with the scribbled digits back out to her.

"I already have your number, Odango," came his annoyed retort.

Her tongue clicked with the huffy way her mouth popped open and her arms raised in exasperation. "You do?!"

His eyes flashed in that familiar, frustrated irritation with her. "I've had it for two years!"

She frowned in disbelief, shook her head and her hands at him. "How?"

"You gave it to me!"

That made her draw back and look at him in total scepticism. "…I did?!" Her eyebrows met her hairline. "For what?!"

He pursed his lips, glowered down at her. "When we sat for that painting together!" he supplied with unveiled irritation.

…Oh. Right.

She deflated. A weak memory resurfaced. He'd been outstandingly infuriating that day. She didn't remember much else.

Then she frowned. "…I don't have yours," she glowered back.

His brow smoothed over, went back to that neutral shade she couldn't read. His voice came out significantly quieter, less strained.

"You never asked…"

The way the tension around his eyes had changed and the tone of his voice and the fall of his posture… it all hit her like a giant freight car of regret.

"Well, I'm asking now…" she said, voice just as quiet.

He just watched her, saying nothing for a moment, eyes drawn up in that near-permanent frown, and she swallowed self-consciously.

When he still wouldn't speak, she pushed the cap of his pen once more, the click resounding between them, and reached out to clip it back into his cardigan.

He tensed when she touched him, her hand slipped against his ribcage while she held the soft fabric still to push the pen all the way home, and with a jolt she felt vibrating all the way through her, she felt his heartbeat _hammering_ against her touch.

Oh.

She looked back up. That neutral expression held it all captive. She would have never known from looking at his face.

She was curling her hand back into the fabric of his cardigan, pulling him down to her, when fate decided to intervene.

His hands still pushed into her hair, his arms still pulled her close to him, but instead of the kiss she'd anticipated, she found herself yanked against his chest, his hands cradling the back of her head as he dove them forward and onto the ground when the explosion hit behind them. He shielded her completely.

Her ears rung unpleasantly, and she felt herself get pulled up from the ground in that mix of tender and rough and away and after him.

Youma.

On familiar, practiced autopilot, her mind zeroed in on the flying, hostile form that hovered above the square and kept firing, before directly jumping to possible solutions how to shake Mamoru off, where she could hide him and leave him so she could transform.

Only then did she remember that she wouldn't have to. _And _she wouldn't have to worry... Well she _did_, but in an entirely different way.

He didn't have that luxury.

His eyes were frantic and wild when he blindly pushed her through the nearest doorway.

People were screaming and running and the picture window to their left had been damaged and splintered like a spider's web in the explosion. Mamoru was vibrating with the sheer intensity of finding a safe place for her, she could all read it in the way his eyes wouldn't calm.

She was able to keep a much, much, clearer head. Café La Bohéme. She knew this place. The restrooms were down that corridor and to the left.

She pulled at his arm. "Come, this way," she shouted over the noise of people screaming and diving beneath bistro tables.

When she pulled him into the small, individual ladies' room, with the small, individual window leading to the alley outside that had allowed her to transform and get to the battle inconspicuously many a day, and the ruckus around them calmed down, he visibly relaxed.

Only to tense up again. "Right," he said, looking back to the door. "You stay here, this should be—" he broke off. "I'll just be—"

He was whacking his brain visibly for excuses and Usagi interrupted him.

"No," she said sternly. "I'll come with you."

His hand was already back at the handle, his look irritated fire. "_Usa_—"

She placed her hand above his on the handle and squeezed to keep him from twisting it, focusing on his eyes intently.

"I'll come with you," she repeated firmly. "…Tuxedo Mask."

His eyes whipped from the handle to hers, shocked.

He paled even more when she didn't release his eyes but her hold on his hand, and yanked her brooch from her purse and thrust it into the air. She shouted her automatically formed words even when her mind was solely focused on the shock in his eyes, and felt herself explode into familiar, glittery, sparkling light that wrapped around her to form Sailor Moon.

The door rattled loudly with the sheer force he fell against it in his wide-eyed shock.

She curled up her nose, not unlike she'd done just a few minutes ago in the middle of the square and he'd reacted so cutely to. Now he just stared, chest heaving, eyes blown up.

She gestured to the window behind her, felt her tiara press against her forehead tightly as she lay it in wrinkles. "Youma?" she said dumbly. "Shall we?"

His look didn't change, a high-pitched noise died in his throat, and he simply nodded, a little too fast.

* * *

_So here you have a fight (=battle) and a make up (=transformation!). Lol, I know, being very liberal with these prompts again. _

_Tomorrow's prompt, Family, will be the concluding chapter. The eight chapter the day after tomorrow with be the epilogue! Just so you're prepared ;)_

_Please let me know what you think! _


	7. Family

_Okay, for MamoUsa Week Day 7: Family, here is the MOST liberal use of all these prompts yet by far, I'd say, lolol. It's the last plot chapter, what follows is the epilogue! I hope you'll like!_

* * *

Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

* * *

Day 7: Family

* * *

Usagi splashed water on her face and groaned into her sink. Then she did it again.

With a deep sigh she dressed in leggings and a thin, white, bit-too-large camisole that hung from her form that she'd laid out to replace the crumbled business outfit she'd spent the day in, then unwrapped the thick towel turban on top of her head and ran her hands through her towel damp hair, shaking it out a little.

Then she sighed again. Her reflection was sighing back at her, all flushed cheeks and downturned lips and panda-eyes because she hadn't removed her mascara before she took her shower and then cried all over it, and wouldn't bother to put on new one tonight.

The senshi had seen her way worse than that, they would deal. Besides, she was late.

Not that she was late for reasons she'd intended for.

All of which included some sort of version where Mamoru's tongue would currently be deep down her throat about now. Obviously, it wasn't.

She stuffed her crumpled clothes as well as her wet towels in the hamper by the washing machine and made her way out of the bathroom with a dejected slump to her shoulders, padding barefoot across the hardwood floor back to her room.

Once he'd transformed (... now that was a memory…), and they'd slipped through the café's bathroom window and arrived back at the scene, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars had already been there.

In her panic of not knowing if he wanted them to know his identity, it got extremely weird.

It had _already _gotten extremely weird.

He touched her differently. He was distracted. He kept staring at her wide-eyed and got far too jumpy whenever one of the youma's projectiles got anywhere close to her.

It was as if he suddenly didn't trust Sailor Moon anymore to do her job at all, now that he knew it was clumsy crybaby Tsukino Usagi underneath.

He'd been downright _panicked_.

By the time they were done, and after the youma was dust under her sparkly pink magic, and she'd finally gotten away from the girls convincing them she'd be right behind, she only forgot something at home, he'd been gone.

When Sailor Moon scaled his balcony, he wasn't there.

And because her heart was breaking and she'd used home as an excuse anyway, she'd held her head under water and cried and tried to wash it all away.

She'd apparently ruined this all too much.

With puffy, red and black rimmed eyes she slumped against her door and slugged inside.

Then she jumped a mile high, shrieking.

Chiba Mamoru was sitting on her windowsill.

His eyes widened, and he held up his arms as if she was the bloody police, and she clamped both her hands tightly across her mouth even when she already heard her mother's concerned voice yell from downstairs, Shingo's curses from two rooms over. She hollered a flinching lie throughout the house and they believed it all because Usagi was no stranger to tripping over air and everyone knew it.

Meanwhile, Mamoru was sitting where only Tuxedo Mask could have gotten up to, all apologetic stare and whisper-shouting, "sorry!" and glancing behind himself out the open window as if considering how bad of an idea showing up here probably was.

"Uh…" he started, then broke off.

Why couldn't they seem to say 'Hi' to each other like normal people, ever? But she didn't say 'Hi', either, instead just watched him like the lunatic she was.

He glanced back from his view out her window, and she saw his hand dig into her windowsill. He sat a little bit askew, only one of his long legs actually touched the ground, the other dangled just above. Was it because he didn't know if he was welcome, or because he didn't want to be here?

She realised she couldn't fully read him. She had no way of knowing what was actually going on in his mind. Was he mad at her? Did he feel bad about all the kissing now that she was someone else than he thought she was? Was he here to say no thank you? Was he worried she'd blow his cover? Did he want her to blow his cover? Did he want to… team up? Fully? Did he want answers regarding all Senshi business of the last two years and then some?

What finally came out of his mouth confused her for a second, because it was nothing she'd considered.

"What was the theory you were testing?" he asked.

She slowly blinked at him in utter incomprehension.

His eyes were that careful mask of neutral and quiet that looked uninterested from the outside.

Since about two hours ago, she knew what his heart was doing when he looked at her like that, though. She felt the sudden urge to step forward and touch his chest, check if it was thumping hard like it had before. She didn't do that, of course. She did take a step forward though.

He pressed his lips together and the look in his eyes tightened for just a second before he elaborated. "When you ambushed me at my university as Sailor Moon. When I'd been so absolutely certain you'd found out I was Tuxedo Mask but I obviously seem to have ended up spectacularly blowing my cover. What theory were you ACTUALLY testing?"

Ah. Right. That theory.

She swallowed. Felt her cheeks heat and clawed her fingers into her shirt. Not her finest plan and nothing she was actually proud of now in the light of day.

_Oh you know, I was just stalking you for a full week straight abusing my magical powers to test if you're into me by trying to get into your pants as basically anyone else. It made sense at the time, promise._

"Uh, if…" she felt the full body flush everywhere, felt it creeping up her chest, her neck, crawling up her very receptive just-showered skin as if she'd lit it on fire. Then she swallowed and squeaked it out. "If …you like me. Usagi-me."

His eyebrows lowered, his eyes darkened into a just-that-little-bit more intense of a glare. Though she realized with a start it wasn't a glare at all. His eyes just looked a little more intimidating than usual when he was focussing on her in a way that felt like a scan of every single hair.

… She suddenly was very much aware of her damp hair, too large shirt and smudged eyes.

He sighed. It sounded utterly exasperated.

"Oh, I'm nuts about you," he said with those intense, stern eyes. "I thought I'd made that very clear."

She inhaled sharply, it went through her like a flush, almost too much.

But he just sat there, still that hand clutching, clawing at her window frame next to his thigh, looking at her in that calm manner that Tuxedo Mask always had.

Her next inhale was a little shakier. "I don't know how I didn't see it," she whispered.

He lowered his chin, threw her a look. "That I'm in love with you?" His tone was challenging, almost daring.

_Don't you dare change the subject again_, that look said.

But her heart stopped. "No," she managed to say. "That you're Tuxedo Mask. Or that you're actually a really, really good person."

That drew him up short, erased all the challenge from his eyes. Instead, he cringed. "I don't know if I agree with that assessment," he said in a voice that was much smaller than before. "Also, even if it were the case, I didn't make it easy for you to see that, Usako."

_Usako_…

Her heart thumped hard, everything tingled, and she had absolutely no control over her body, or the three steps she took towards him. When she stopped, his eyes had grown that very vulnerable shade again, and both his eyes and hers flicked to where his knees almost but not quite touched her, before they flicked back up and met.

His face was tense and worried and so very conflicted.

He swallowed, before he spoke, all wince. "I told the girl I liked she'd never ever get a boyfriend when she behaved the way she did. I told her she looked like food," he said, eyes boring into hers.

Usagi shrugged, but Mamoru shook his head, sighed hard, and kept going.

"I told her she wouldn't have a chance in hell auditioning for roles and posing in front of shady photographers. I told her that her crush thought of her as a little sister in a mocking tone and not in sympathy like the topic deserved. I told her she can't walk and talk at the same time and yelled at her when she threw failures at me that she was clearly upset about," he said.

His voice was imploring. As if he was trying to convince her what a bad choice he would be, how unworthy, and how much of an idiot she would be to want him. And maybe that was exactly what he was doing. Or trying to do, anyway.

Usagi scrunched up her nose. "I called you a jerk really, _really_ often." She said it slowly, in a way that was meant to say, _I'm not any better._

He snorted, shook his head. "I _was_ a jerk."

She lifted her shoulders once more, smiling. "And _I do_ look like food a lot."

His chuckle was low, somewhat incredulous, somewhat self-depreciating.

It died, stuttering and _thrilling_, in his throat when Usagi reached out and ran two fingers along the seam of his black jeans, right next to his knee and just a few, innocent centimeters up his inner thigh.

When her hand lowered to his thigh fully, stroked up just that tiny, tiny little bit higher, he gasped and caught her hand with both of his, startled.

Usagi was about to yank her hand back, was starting to apologize, but he kept it in a death grip, one hand around her wrist, the other smoothing out her palm on his knee that was apparently deemed the safe zone.

His hands were shaking, so were hers, and his eyes, and the way they looked at her hand in that wondrous way as he stroked the lines on her palm, did things to her she simply had no reference to. As if her body was this alien thing, hot and flushed and shaking and tingling and doing what it wanted.

"Why Usagi?" she managed to whisper down at the otherworldly image of his hand stroking hers. She hadn't noticed she'd completely stepped between his knees. "Why not Sailor Moon?"

She felt his slow, tender half smile as if it branded itself on her lungs, and it was _close_. His quirked-up mouth, his softening eyes as he lifted one shoulder and the side of his lift with it.

"Usagi is _very_ disarmingly adorable. And to make it a downright irresistible mix, she's also the bravest, strongest person I've ever met," he said with that intoxicating smile, that almost apologetic tone. "I guess I just didn't realise to what extent."

She frowned. "I'm a crybaby. I'm lazy and I give up and I drive you up the wall."

He shook his head, still that _smile_, still his _hand_ – stroking hers on his knee and she felt every touch like tingling shots through her whole body.

"You're not afraid to wear your emotions on your sleeves. To be unapologetically real," he said. "You cry and you love and you rant and you hug and you yell. You indulge and comfort and charm. You don't hide a single thing. All your kindness, all your frustrations, all your sympathy and your anger. It's all there and you let it. You don't apologize for any of it. You let yourself be unconditionally, unconventionally you. That's braver than I've ever been and the bravest I've ever seen."

She bit her lip. His eyes held her captive.

"It sucked me in and didn't let me go. You _do_ very much drive me up the wall. Every day. It's like a very exasperating, very addictive drug."

She snorted. She was so close she could feel his breath on her lip as he spoke, and he hers. And her insides fluttered when he licked his lips after her huff of breath on them.

"And you never give up," he added, almost as an afterthought. "Especially as Sailor Moon. Ever. Not when it's important."

His eyes were firmly on her lips. His hand was gripping hers on his knee in a deathgrip by now that she was sure he wasn't even noticing.

She swallowed. "…Since... since when?" she whispered.

His eyes flew up to hers at that. "Since when do I love you?" he asked, eyes clear and steady and her insides did that somersault again.

He was really adamant in spelling that out very clearly for her tonight. Almost in a kind of lecturing way, as if she'd been very dense before and he hadn't known he needed to be this clear.

Probably exactly what was going on. _Had_ been going on.

"Yeah…" she whimpered.

His eyes lowered back into a thoughtful frown even when his eyes remained entirely, intensely focused.

"When we sat for that painting together," he said.

_Oh_.

She blinked. She barely remembered that…

And that… that would mean…

She was 16 when they sat for that painting... Mamoru fell in love with her first, almost a _year_ before she'd fallen so desperately in love with Tuxedo Mask…

Her hand twitched in his impossible hold.

"Was it a shock…?" she whispered, and then shook her head, because she was being stupid. "I mean of course it was a shock," she corrected herself, "just—"

This time she didn't need to explain. He understood her right away. _Was it a shock to learn I'm Sailor Moon?_

"_Oh_, it _very_ much was," he breathed, voice incredulous and vehement.

Oh.

"Like, I'm completely freaked out," he said. Calmly, rationally, pretty much conversationally, not a touch of freak-out in his voice at all, and it was so very him. "I've spent the last hour freaking out over every hit you ever took, and every time I left you alone with that. And then my mind opened that pit, questioning _everything_ I _ever_ said to you, trying to recall every single time I ever touched you. We touched _a lot_, Usako, and I didn't even know. Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask touch _a lot_."

She snorted. "I know."

She really, really did.

"I… " he started, frowned thoughtfully at her, then kept going in that wondrous, vulnerable tone. "You haven't _hung_ the bloody moon, turns out you _are_ the bloody moon."

She laughed, then gave him a look that would have included a cocked eyebrow if she were capable of doing that. "...are you calling me fat again?" she joked.

His laugh was tinkling joy and open mouth and teeth and tilted back head… and then it sobered immediately into shock. "What do you mean '_again'_?! I've never called you fat!"

She snorted, turned that look on even harder. "Oh, you _really_, really have."

"_What_?! No!" his eyes were wide. _Now_ he looked freaked out. "That's ridiculous! I…"

He faltered. His look turned almost mourning, wilting, his tone so very quiet, and his deathgrip on her hand grew weak and loose and her own grip tightened to make up for the loss.

"I… I've really ruined this before it ever started, haven't I?" he whispered to their hands. "I mean, of course you wouldn't want to be with—"

She stopped him with a finger to his lips, and he brought startled eyes back to hers. And then she slipped her free hand fully against his cheek, and allowed her thumb to brush across the soft, red, plumb flesh of his lower lip, not unlike she'd done on the night that jump-started this… whatever this was.

She brushed her thumb against his lip, moving it so very pliantly, and just like then, he puckered his lips, eyes fixed on hers, and kissed the pad that touched him so.

This time, she didn't jump away. Instead, she just kept going, a little mesmerized, and added more fingers. They, too, were kissed.

She didn't jump, but it still tingled from her fingertips like lighting through her, just as it had the first time he'd reacted in this way.

She sighed in that way that was half a tortured whimper, and leaned a little harder against him, settled in-between his knees tucked against her sides.

He was pressing a kiss quite reverently to her pinky finger, bringing his own free hand up to press hers tighter against his face, when she started to speak.

"It's easy, you know?" she whispered. "Falling for a superhero who did his darndest to be any male-attracted-person's dream with the roses and the gallantry and the chivalry and the righteous speeches and all the perfect."

His look turned stricken. But she just tried to put all the tender in her smile and explain.

"It makes me love him more that he's just a person underneath?" she said, cocking her head.

He inhaled sharply when she uttered the word 'love'. Pressed his hands tighter against him where he had them trapped on his knee and his face.

"Someone who's trying his best at playing hero just like me, who gets frustrated and scared and in over his head but fights anyway," she went on, quiet and to the rhythm of her wildly thumping heart. "Someone like me who chooses to face these scary things all the time because his courage and conviction so weirdly outweighs the crazy fear, too."

His eyes were wide, so close to hers. He looked at her like his fate was in her hands.

She curled her fingers against his stupidly pretty face, across sculpted cheekbones and silky skin, and grinned a toothy grin at him that must have looked altogether shaky and half-terrified. "You know," she continued, "someone who's rubbish at flirting, sucks at arcade games and whom I can make growl really hard in 5 seconds flat."

His chuckle lifted his face in a way that ping-ponged off her heart, bright and amused and so, so warm.

"…that you can," he said, all mirth.

With the change of mood, he released her hands, and she let them drop and fold weirdly in his lap, but his eyes on her were warmer than they'd ever been before. And while she didn't know what to do now, she really rather would not want to move away from between his legs.

A moment of silence and staring at that pretty smile of his turned into two, until he nudged her with his knees.

"Give me your phone," he said.

Her smile slipped into confusion.

But he just looked at her expectantly, and so she reluctantly stepped away from his legs, got her phone, all glitter case and bunny-and-moons shaped charm, off her bed, unlocked it, and came back to hand it over.

He threw her a look. "You just unlock your phone for someone without asking why first?" he scolded.

She rolled her eyes dramatically and shook her phone at him.

He raised an eyebrow that was supposed to be reprimanding, she was sure, but he didn't seem to be able to erase the amused smile behind it. He swiped at her phone, tapped, then began to type.

"What are you—"

"I'm giving you my number, Usako," he said as he handed it back.

The new contact was open when she glanced back at it. It was saved under the name 'Your idiot.'

Oh…

Paliptated, bursting heart, she dared all the frigging hope. For all that had been said, there were some very important things left unsaid. She wondered if this was his way of saying them.

When she finally shook free of her phone-staring stupor (_Your_ idiot… _My_ idiot…) after maybe a bit too long, he was gazing at her in that mix of fond and terrified, and like his head was still trying to do in an hour what she'd had a whole weekend to get semi-un-freaked.

"I've uh…" he started. He was looking at her hair with that frown that was probably not meant as a frown.

She blinked up at him. Tensing up his brow ever so briefly in that unsure way, his other leg finally touched the floor, and he slipped off her windowsill and into her room.

One step and he was where she was, and one shaky hand reached toward her not-as-damp hair ever so tentatively.

Right. She'd forgotten it was loose.

He drew one strand towards him, let it spread across his palm, ran the back of his hand against it almost reverently.

"I've never seen you with your hair down…" he whispered in unmitigated wonder.

It was back, the full-scale flush and tingle, and it ran like a fissure down her body. How could he do that to her by simply touching her hair in that innocent manner?

Her voice cracked when she spoke, hoarse and tight. "Right," she croaked. "You're not very fond of the hair buns."

Incredulous eyes flew from her hair immediately. "Oh, you got that _so_ wrong…"

He'd leaned in just ever so slightly when he said that, eyes dark and intense and imploring, and something cracked in her. A rift that opened and demanded, and she grabbed his shirt in a tight fist and pulled him down.

His lips landed on hers so _very_, very willingly, so _relieved_ almost, and the way both of his hands immediately flew to her head and into her hair, holding her close and tilting her up with this careful, desperate hold? The way his whole body tensed beneath her and his sigh came out so _tortured_, yet his lips remained so soft and sweet?

It all pooled in her bursting heart. He kissed her like she was something he really could not believe he was allowed to touch.

But it wasn't enough. She could feel his trembling muscles underneath the soft fabric of his shirt, rippling underneath her touch in an agitated, frustrated dance, felt the thrill of his towering presence all around her, filling up her every sense and demanding more.

She pulled harder, her other hand flying up and clawing around his bicep and up his shoulder to bring him down to her closer, tighter, _more_, and when he finally opened his mouth and allowed her in she moaned into his mouth, and from the tremor she felt through her hand on his belly and the noises that erupted into her mouth, it seemed it affected him just as much as her.

And then her hands clawed beneath his shirt, and his hand skimmed across the naked skin of her arms, her shoulders, beneath the thin strap of her camisole, dancing across her skin in butterfly-soft strokes while one hand grabbed at her ass and pulled her flush against him, and she felt the need to thank whatever person invented leggings because she could feel each and every touch and press through the fabric burning across her skin.

His tongue against hers felt so fucking deliciously good it wrecked her, and she melted against his mouth and hands in helpless abandon.

If it weren't for the fact that the walls were thin and her family was in this house, she would have walked him, pushing and pulling and climbing and demanding, the last step of the way to her bed. She'd have ripped that fucking shirt off of him and buried her teeth and tongue against the skin she currently felt jumping against her touch through the offending fabric until he howled and begged for more and for lower.

But the walls _were_ thin and her family _was_ there, and also she was late and this was new and she was scared to scare him off with all her intensity and so she didn't.

But she also didn't let go, and neither did he, and instead continued to slowly suck each other's souls out via tongue and lips and soft, whimpering groans, and hands in places that weren't all that appropriate anymore and she really couldn't stop.

His kisses grew more frantic, cut off and breathless and he hissed through his teeth in between when she writhed herself against him, and his hands flew back to her cheeks to hold her in the kind of stronghold that wasn't sure if he was keeping her from pulling away or coming too close, peppering ever so slightly open-mouthed kisses against her lips, her chin, the sensitive skin just shy of her upper lip, the bridge of her nose, her eyelids, pressed against the side of her nostrils, her cheekbones.

"I was so," he said, words broken up by the soft smack of his lips against her skin in puckered kisses, "_so_ fucking _jealous_ in that bloody train you have no idea."

She blubbered against the onslaught on her face, whimpering and mewling and clawing at him and it was _hard_ to answer, but she did, her every word driven by the hectic rhythm of his lips against her skin.

"I sat on your bike for three hours that day trying to see you," she rasped out breathlessly. "Only reason why I even decided to help Umino."

He groaned, and then his tongue was back in her mouth, and she did the same, bonelessly slacking against him and his strong hold of her face in his hands.

And then she groaned again because he pulled away, hands still tight against her face, and he spoke against her lips in frenzied incredulity. "...After all these years of flirting you wanted to test if I was into you and you did it as Sailor Moon?!"

She huffed helplessly, the breath puffing right into his mouth as she stood on her tiptoes chasing his mouth.

"I swear there was a plan behind it-mm—" The rest was muffled against his lips and buried by a whimper when his tongue slid against the inside of her lower lip.

She cried out again, because his lips separated from hers with a pop once more, and his eyes sought out hers as he spoke softly against her lips in that way, and she kinda never wanted to allow him to speak again if it weren't with his lips right on hers such as this.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, and her eyes flew open.

His hands slid back farther into her hair and cradled the back of her neck and looked at her as if he really, really needed her to understand what he was about to say, but couldn't quite get it out right.

"I do find Sailor Moon very..." he swallowed "…very..." he broke off again, and then she registered that he was _blushing_, Tuxedo Mamoru-baka was _blushing_ for her, and it was her undoing.

"It's just that I was already... if I hadn't been such a blind _moron_..."

She shook her head, interrupting him. She knew exactly what he meant, and she shrugged against the hands in her hair and her neck.

"Same?" she said rather sheepishly and pulled him back down to her.

This time it wasn't him that interrupted them, it was the shrill noise of the first few chords of a bubbly pop-song that she'd set as Minako's ringtone.

Right, she was actually very, very late…

She didn't make a move to answer, but settled back on her feet nevertheless, and found his eyes. His hands slipped ever so slowly from her hair and settled at his sides, rubbing his pants, in a way that seemed like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them now that they weren't on her anymore.

He suddenly looked a little nervous.

She wrinkled her nose, looked up at him apologetically. "I'm…. I need to go."

He deflated. A free-fall of every muscle in his body, including those around his eyes and mouth and jaw. "Oh," he simply said, his face reading complete and utter disappointment.

"Senshi meeting," she mumbled, all regret. "I'm late."

His hands _slapped_ into his pockets, they flew in there so fast.

"Right," he mumurmed back, eyes averted to his shoes on her giant pink rug with a flash of worry, then to her bare feet.

He took an unsure step back.

She followed him that step and one more, erasing all the distance and craned her neck, looking up at him unsurely.

"Um… do you… would you like to come?"

Something flitted across his eyes, something she couldn't decipher, something that made her nervous. It made her realise she really, really wanted him to come with her.

She shifted from one foot to the other "… I didn't know if you'd want to be like… if you wanted to…"

She trailed off with a sigh at his intense frown.

She was about to take it back, assure him he really didn't need to, this could stay a secret between them, no one has to know—

Then he interrupted her.

"I would really love to…" he said in a rather quiet voice. Then he swallowed. "Would I… would I be welcome?"

And then she _could_ read him. And it filled her heart with emotion. He really, really wanted to. Had wanted to forever.

She couldn't keep the smile from taking over her whole body, couldn't help from smiling even harder when she saw how it affected him, how his cheeks colored, how he swallowed, how his face went a little slack and the insecurity wiped a little off.

She whirled around, reached for her big pink oversized sweater with the giant rabbit print on it that she'd laid out what seemed like in a different life now, grabbed her overnight bag and tossed it over her shoulder.

"Meet you down at the street?" she asked, a little too giddy.

He blinked. "Uh…"

She rolled her eyes, nodded to the window behind him.

"I'm leaving through the front door. I'm 18. My family is used to me staying out overnight."

He nodded, taken aback, but moved to the window nonetheless. Their eyes met when he turned back to her, once again seated in her window, her door on the handle. He returned her smile.

She bounded down the stairs, twisting her hair up into what must be very, very messy versions of her signature buns, sticking bobby pins in them as she ran through the front door and yelled a goodnight to her mom.

He was standing a corner down from her house, hands in his pocket.

She stopped right in front of him, but too far to touch.

She was well aware that her brain was running through the possible scenario that she might just decide to follow Mamoru into his apartment after he left Hikawa, whether he really invited her to or not.

She gripped the handle of her bag a little tighter.

There was a smile painted on his lips, but he looked still so unsure.

"…you sure this is ok? I won't intrude? Or be electrocuted on the spot?"

Yes. She could read him now. This vulnerable, good boy who just wanted to belong. She really, really, really wanted to keep him.

She took his hand, tugged on it. He came with her as if he'd follow her anywhere.

"C'mon, Mamo-chan. Let's introduce you to your new Senshi family."

He ended up not letting go of her hand. He held it tightly, all the way up the steps of Hikawa shrine and beyond.

* * *

_THERE YOU GO GUUUYS! I am honestly proud I did this in a week, lol. (Well, a week and a half. I pre-wrote a bit.) The next and last chapter, tomorrow, will be the epilogue. The theme is, fittingly, Usagi's birthday! Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!_

_(I discussed tonight with TinaCentury, Queenrisa, as well as my wonderful (and currently suffering heavily under me) beta Uglygreenjacket how I really love this hobby, lol? We get to tell each other stories of our favorite characters. We get to share this. And honestly half of what makes this hobby so great is the sharing – which I get to do with all of you! So, talk to me? I'd love to hear from you! In the reviews, or in my inbox on Tumblr, I'd love to share this fandom world with you!)_

_(Also please no one think too closely about the fact that I extended the Shitennou's runs to years and we're at Nephrite, and yet the Yumemi Yumeno episode did happen, which is Zoisite. Let's just pretent they shuffled around, yeah? xD)_


	8. Usagi's Birthday

_So, here you go guys, last chapter of this crazy ride! I realised yesterday that this fic turned out longer than 11 Hours… and I wrote it in what, 10 days? That's so crazy. So anyway, thank the MamoUsaWeek Event for this, hosted by Sailor Moon Turtle. This would have been a one-shot otherwise! Other people to thank for this are, as I said in the beginning, graciidancer, who was so sweet to transcibe literally everything I needed from the Viz dub for me for this silly idea. My plan was to make Mamoru regret all the shit he said to her in Classic lol? And last, thank my beta Uglygreenjacket for this! Her life is crazy busy right now and the last thing she needed was me sending nightly chapters to her to comment on and proof-read, and yet she did both diligently for me anyway, because she's the best!_

_Oh and a note on locations in this fic because I've been asked this on my tumblr: Yes, all locations I specifically name and describe (Oslo Café, Exit 4, Kimi-chan statue, Café La Boheme, all the mentions train stations, etc.) are all actually real-life locations in Tokyo, most of them in Azabu-Juban which served as the backdrop for Sailor Moon's "Juuban" in all its canons!_

_Anyway, more thanks at the bottom to all of you! Please let me know what you thought of this ride! _

_Celebrate Usagi's birthday with me! (ngl, I'm hoping for some Dream Arc announcements during her birthday celebrations in Japan. Here's to hoping!)_

* * *

Idiots

A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019

* * *

Day 8: Usagi's Birthday

* * *

The conbini at the JR station was a tiny hole in the wall, more like a kiosk, and the cashier was already ringing up his can of Boss coffee. It was, however, completely lined in snacks and newspapers of all sorts.

Mamoru scowled at the tabloid section with a vengeance. In particular, at the image of himself and Sailor Moon on them. All of them. Then he scowled even harder when he picked one of them up, the one with the biggest close-up of the previous night, even though he'd vowed so hard to ignore them, and handed it over to the cashier to ring up, as well.

Walking out of the JR station and letting himself be strung along by the crowd, he leafed through it roughly, tearing at the paper a little too hard. He found the title story easily enough.

He glared at it as if the paper was solely to blame for the photos themselves.

"Everything ok?" a voice beside him asked.

He glanced sideways. A woman in business attire with softly clicking heels, looking at him concerned. He went back to glaring at the paper, didn't really answer despite the grumbled "fine," he bit out a little too angrily.

He turned the page with a growl and a loud flip of the paper, and shuffled on along.

"Are you sure…?" the woman said again.

He didn't even look this time, just bit out a slightly more hissed rendition of the same, 'fine'.

The moment he exited the station, the light changed, bright and dazzling, keeping him from comfortably reading the offending words, and he ripped his sunglasses from where he'd stuck them into the crew neck of his T-shirt and put them back on.

There. Better.

He'd rounded two corners and passed one traffic light, scowling at the paper all the while yet still reading despite all this, when he jumped out of his skin.

"If these papers upset you so, why would you even read them?"

His eyes flew in an accusing manner to the culprit. He realised with a start that it was the same woman – or so he'd thought, he really hadn't looked at her enough to be completely sure. His eyes flicked to her feet. Yes, blush-colored heels. Same woman. Had she followed him?

He took a closer, more calculating look at her. She was fidgeting a little, shrinking a little under his probably not very friendly stare through black-tinted sunglasses, but seemed to wait for his answer.

She seemed a little familiar. As if he'd seen her somewhere before. But he couldn't, for the life of him, place her.

"I usually don't," he said finally, all frown.

"What's special about this one, then?" she asked, cocking her head.

And then it clicked. The way she moved her head, the bright and open way her eyes shined up at him, standing just that millimeter too close to be a stranger even if still a modest amount of distance away. Yes, he _had_ seen her before. A few weeks ago as a waitress in that café in Shibuya Usagi had dragged him in to eat her weight in Cremia ice-cream. Usagi had liked her dress, kept going on and on about how much she thought her hair looked pretty.

However, this woman was not that waitress.

His posture immediately relaxed, and he found himself leaning down towards her just as a smile pulled at his lips almost in reflex.

He closed the paper and tucked it haphazardly underneath his armpit.

He shrugged, one side of his lips lifting higher than the other as he peered down at her. "Pictures of a pretty girl?" he threw out.

He smirked at the mix of blush and irritation that bloomed on her freckled face.

"You mean the hentai section in the back?" she countered.

Mamoru threw his head back and allowed a sharp, surprised laugh. "Yeah those," he said, chuckling, eyes settling back on her, "absolutely those."

He leaned in a little more, shifted in a way that brought him a little closer to her. It was on. Two could play at this game.

He fired his shot.

"These pictures are not half as captivating as you, of course," he said with the kind of half-smile he'd been recently told was 'panty-combusting' and he had not at all subsequently trained in the mirror in all its nuance, absolutely not.

Her eyes widened and narrowed pretty much at the same time.

"What brings you here, then?" he continued.

He had to press his lips together to keep the smirk from taking over his entire face at the way she bristled.

"Just going shopping." She'd crossed her arms tightly. If she could, she would have hissed, he was sure.

He tilted his head, leant down, threw her the most disarming smile in his arsenal. "Did you want company for that?"

She bristled, straightened her shoulders and looked at him in such _deep_, utter appalment he couldn't keep away the laugh even as her fist hit against his bicep and she turned absolutely red in the face.

"You— you—"

He rolled his eyes, still all the smirk, and let her off the hook.

"Are you following me around to figure out what your present is, Usako?"

She deflated much in the way he thought he might previously have, her entire posture dropping and flitting towards him almost unconsciously in equal parts relief and consternation.

"Ugh, how did you know?" she pouted.

It was always very confusing to see her expressive reactions on other people's faces.

He shrugged. "I always know."

(He didn't. Not _always_. She didn't always give herself away as obviously as she had today. He prided himself on the fact that he knew _often enough_. But it certainly wasn't always. He'd adapted a false positive approach, though, and he guessed she didn't _have_ to know how often he called random strangers that came on to him Usako.)

She really did misuse that pen. He would need to have another word with Luna.

Her moue was both adorable and irritating. Right expression. Wrong face.

"But _how_? I barely do this!" she whined.

He snorted. Obviously, yes, she really never usually did this to him on purpose, now, not like today. More often than not, he simply ran into her when she was out on a stake-out after what they suspected was Zoisite's next victim and he just stumbled upon her in her different disguises. And in the beginning, she'd really enjoyed the game of 'how long until my boyfriend notices'. And, going into this relationship, it _had_ taken him a while… It would have _helped_ if he'd _known_ she had the power to do that. Stupid bloody pen.

Instead, he gave her a stern look. "I told you you'd get your present at the party. It's a surprise."

She shrunk a little, pouting.

"And what, did you think I was out to _buy_ it? On the day of your birthday?"

Pouting got a little harder. "Maybe," she mumbled.

He chuckled. Quirked one lip back up. "Hm. Whatever am I going to do with you?"

With that, her eyes shot back up, returned to that challenging look. "Oh,_ anything_ you want," she delivered way too smoothly.

He rolled his eyes.

Usagi was about to lean up, moving into his personal space quickly, but he took an immediate step back, holding up his arms and shaking his head slowly.

She blinked, taken aback.

"Change back first, I'm not kissing other women," he said.

"What if I just wanted a hug?" she batted wrong-colored eyelashes up at him.

He shook his head.

"Mamo-chaaaan."

"Nuh-uh," he said, taking another step back from her. "We've talked about this, Usako. Only _you_. Besides, half your friends still think I cheat on you with Asanuma."

It was her turn to roll her eyes. "You didn't _have_ to come on to me like that when I was Asanuma…"

He threw her a withering look. "Go change back," he said.

She hrmphed, but looked both ways before stalking away.

He turned, strolling down his previous direction in a way more leisurely pace than usual, allowing her to catch up.

He heard her approach, bounding and hopping after him, only about a minute or two later.

He turned and opened his arms wide, tabloid stretched far away from him and all.

She came flying into his arms, hopping up the way she sometimes did, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. He recoiled a bit with her in his arms, like he sometimes did when he didn't brace enough for impact, and buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling deep.

"Hi," he whispered against her warm, soft, Usako-smelling skin.

She giggled, tightening the hold of her arms across his shoulders, and he felt her wriggling feet against his shins, all the way off the ground.

"Hi," she murmured back, rubbing her cheek against his hair.

There. Better.

He held her a little longer like that, smiling against her skin to her happy sighs, smiling harder at her protesting noises when he lowered her back to her feet a little while later.

She slipped her hand into his when he resumed walking.

"So, what _are_ you doing here then, if not buying my present?" she asked as they passed a corner, maneuvering around a woman with a road-blocking, if adorable, toddler.

"Getting the alcohol for your party," he answered.

Her look turned fully disappointed. "Oh."

He threw her a smile, deciding not to ask her how much time had gone into following him today so absolutely unsuccessfully, and instead, nudged the tabloid against her arm. "Here," he said.

Her hand whipped out from his and she grasped the paper with utter glee. Her reaction to these things was drastically different from his.

She flipped the pages with unabandoned excitement, and he pulled at her elbow to nudge her out of the way of a passing pedestrian who she'd been about to run into.

"This had you so angry?!" She raised both eyebrows, not looking up. "But these are so cute!"

With this her eyes flicked up, and she flipped the page around to hold under his nose.

"Yes, I've seen them." He scowled. "I bought it."

She shook both the paper and her head at him in utter confusion, as if she simply couldn't understand what was the matter.

"But Mamo-chan, these are _cute_. _Look_!" She pinned the paper against her chest and poked at it.

They _were_ kind of cute. Even if that was absolutely beside the point. The pictures showed Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon in a more innocent embrace. It had been cold last night, the battle had been long but not particularly exerting, and afterwards Sailor Moon had shivered. He'd simply hugged her from behind and wrapped her a little in his cape to keep her warm, and forgotten his surroundings over it completely.

Underneath, as always, what followed were all kinds of wildest speculations about them.

The problem wasn't the picture itself. The problem was how close-by these pictures had been taken, and they hadn't even noticed. This didn't look particularly like telescope zoom at all.

"I'd still prefer they wouldn't make a deal out of catching these moments," he mumbled with an edge.

She shrugged, beamed at the picture, held it up and studied it as if it were a piece of art.

He sighed.

There were tons of photos of them out there. Many way, way worse than this.

Ever since he found out the woman he loved was the woman he fought evil with, they'd become a near unbeatable, synched up fighting machine, and he, ironically, the one of them who'd become a little more clumsy in the process.

To be fair, though, she'd had _years_ of experience keeping a clear head fighting alongside her crush, numbing and non-repressed physical attraction and all. For him this was, at least in this particularly weird way in which it _wasn't_ new, all new.

Sometimes, watching her as Sailor Moon these days, he was so smitten to the bone to the point it rendered him almost useless, and he had yet to find a way to fix that. Unfortunately, it was something the tabloids had picked up on. For weeks they'd documented every forlorn, lovesick look ever grazing his face, every flushed ear and conspicuous change to the front of his attire, speculating wildly on the changed nature of Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon's relationship, until, weeks later, even when he'd been so careful, they'd snuck a blurry photo they'd deemed a kiss (even though it hadn't been one! For all the kisses they'd _actually_ exchanged while it was too risky, because he'd been too weak to refrain and protest and she saw no reason why he should be protesting at all, THAT blurry thing they'd captured had actually just been him leaning in to brush the debris from her cheek!)

And as much as he downright _loathed_ the media attention, the 8-page-analyses of an innocent kiss, it was really hard not to do anything at all worth reporting for them. It was really hard not to let it all affect him, and harder to hide it, when he suddenly had everything he'd ever wanted. This magical girl, no hiding from her whatsoever necessary, and a place where he belonged with her.

She pulled him from his thoughts with a tug on his arm.

"So, what am I gettinnnggg, Mamo-chaaan?"

Her eyes were bright, her smile was _enormous,_ and he rolled his eyes with an absolutely _annoyed_ smile.

"You'll have to wait until tonight to find out!" he repeated for about the 50th time.

Her birthday gift was sitting for a painting with Yumemi Yumeno. The first time Usagi had been to Mamoru's apartment, she stared so long and hard at the painting that had been inspired by them and he had, subsequently, bought, lovesick and pathetic, a year later, he'd started to feel a little sick.

Too much? Too creepy? He'd almost died under her prolonged silence as she studied it up there on his wall.

But what could he say? What had been captured in that painting, however much he'd been in petulant denial afterwards for months, had been the moment he'd fallen in love with her. Of course, he'd had to buy it.

Plus, there was still the fact that Yumemi Yumeno's paintings had been said to bring about love. The urban legend had been that whoever owned one of her paintings would be granted their wishes in love. He'd grumbled to himself all throughout the bloody transaction, all throughout hanging it, every time he'd returned home without Tsukino Usagi.

But it had _kind of worked, hadn't it_?

It turned out, when she'd finally reacted, that day in his apartment, she hadn't been creeped out. Instead she'd started sniffling, eyes fixed on the couple in the painting that resembled them, and confessed in a bout of tears that she barely remembered that day and that she so, so wished she did.

He'd just chuckled. Said it really had been any other day. They'd bickered, she'd been cute; just this time, he'd taken one look too long at her and fallen down a pit he'd never really recovered from, however much he'd tried.

Still, she'd made him sit and recall every last minute-detail from that day in his perspective. It still irked her though that meanwhile he had a _perfect_ recollection of the night Usagi claimed she fell in love with Tuxedo Mask. Better than her, even. Down to the color of her shoes she wore that night. It had helped, of course, that the night that Tuxedo Mask found Usagi hurt and bruised in that alley, Mamoru had long been absolutely gone for her. Of _course_, he'd remember that night in perfect clarity. He'd kissed her bloody hand! Mamoru had _never_ been allowed to do that!

So, he'd decided to track Yumemi down and ask for a commission. One they would sit for tomorrow, and she'd find out tonight when Yumemi herself would show up at her party, and Usagi could get to pay special attention to, so that this time, she'd get to remember it forever like she so often whined that she didn't.

Usagi, beside him, pouted the kind of pitiful pout that usually made him relent and give in to _anything_. Not this time though, he really wanted to see the surprise on her face tonight.

He'd stopped just shy of the sliding doors to the Liquor Off he'd been steering towards all this time.

"I've got to hurry up," he said. "You've got to go too."

Usagi slumped against him with a dramatic sigh and threw her arms around his middle, hugging tight, propping her chin up again his chest. "Do I get a birthday kiss at least?"

His arms flew up and he stroked his hands up and down her shoulders and arms.

"You already got tons of birthday kisses today, Usako," he said, leaning down anyway.

She scrunched up her nose, moving up to her tiptoes. "That was this morning. This is now," she pouted up against his lips and then sighed happily when he peppered slow, chaste, sweet kisses against hers.

Puckered lips formed words against his, broken up by little kisses.

"You won't be too late?" she asked, ending with a kiss, and one more, and one more.

"I'll be there right after class," he broke up for another kiss, "and bring the champagne."

"Mmm," she sighed, and settled back on her feet. "Good," she said.

His head followed her down, catching her lips in more chaste, softest of soft kisses. Barest brushes, puckered and sweet, and felt her smile against his lips, clutching his T-shirt and tugging a little at it.

"Don't leave me there alone," she mumbled, her lips interrupted by his puckered ones.

He snorted, lifted his head ever so slightly away and threw her a look. "You will definitely not be alone, Usako." Then he leaned down and pressed another kiss to her mouth.

"I really don't have this fan club you keep speaking about," she said.

He lifted his head again, ever so slightly, just so that he could look her in the eyes and smile at her. Then he brushed his nose against hers.

"Usako, your fan club is right here."

And then she blushed so prettily, and the next kiss was just that sweeter for it.

He was about to let her go (really, he was), when, right behind them, the screaming started.

He sighed hard.

Usagi just shrugged and pulled him away from the side of the shop and into the nearest alley, where he stood guard first and she second, before Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon appeared to save the day yet again, with back-up only minutes behind.

These days, it really wasn't such a daunting task.

They'd do this. They'd find this stupid crystal and find this stupid princess and they'd do it all together. There really was nothing they couldn't face together.

* * *

_Fin_

* * *

_So, this is pretty much the fluffiest shit I ever wrote I think, lol. Or at least a close second. (I think I Pledge Myself To You was even fluffier, ngl, but you know, usually I tend to deal in angst these days lol. It's nice to see this much happy can come out of me too tho, lolol) _

_(And also, some of you specifically asked for a Mamoru POV chapter – I hope this one fills your need haha!)_

_Anyway! Giant bout of thanks coming your way, everyone you read and reviewed and supported me through this crazy week! I know it's "just" been a week, but reviewing when a chapter is coming on schedule anyway kinda means the world? Because that means you're reviewing for my benefit, to support me, and not because you're scared the end won't come if you don't? So, I appreciate it so, so much more that you reviewed for me - fanfiction to me is as much about the community and the exchange for me as anything, and hearing from you is pretty much half the deal of this for me, sharing these characters with you that we all love. Now, of after this has been finished and completed! So, THANK YOU!_

_As is customary by now for all my longer multi-chapters, here's all the reviewers I am allowed to thank as of now, both on FF and Ao3, in more or less the order that I found you when I went back and re-read all of them:_

**_Hobbs87, Mianngu, Tina Century, Kasienda, moonwrite, hopeflutters, KiernaRo, Pia Bartolini, starlight12, sparksofarevolution, The Rogue Girl, jaondm, Zanahana, frenchfan78, Daire123, James Birdsong, Tropical Remix, Buffy fan, Ruk, BetaBlue1, Lady Aya, DarkeneHrt101, Sakura, Ayeilin, sileyerin45, soireeposh, Xfangirl123X, tryntee13, angeljme, Syulai, chocolatito, Madame Sadako, angfdz, Antigone2, Moonlight Usagi-Chan, Anyeline, tinymiko, Cptkitten, Mirax(SaturnnFoxx), Belkacaramelka, em iloveyou d, Deebunny, IamCharlotte88, questions, Rei0ki, Celestrial Cat, Moon Bunny, magical girl la, A Reader, ff9moonie, DistanStorm, LadyRiver9, haruka-usagi-forever, Ashley, phillynz, And i Oop, ambrebastet, tavae themisal1, Guest (2x)_**

_Thank you guys for the support! It means the world! Please stick around, I will be back with a new fic, soon!_


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